68 



NOTES ORNITHOLOGY. 



Grouse and the Weather. — I was out shooting yesterday with Mr. J. 

 Hatfield, at Walton, near Boston Spa, and in one of the woods the keeper picked 

 up a hen grouse. I never saw a bird fatter, or in finer plumage, and by the 

 freshness of its eyes it had evidently been dead only a very short time. Starvation 

 had certainly nothing to do with its death, therefore I conclude that it had killed 

 itself against a tree. I have since heard from Mr. Hatfield that he had had the 

 grouse opened, and found the liver black and the crop full of yewberries, which 

 will probably account for its death. Sand is quite as essential as food, and the 

 want of it becomes another cause of death. The last I saw in this district got up 

 under my feet, behind my house here, in the winter of 1856. — J. Chaloner, 

 Newton Kyirie, Tadcaster, February 2nd, 1886. 



Judging from the reports which have lately appeared in the northern news- 

 papers, the protracted severe weather has compelled large numbers of grouse to 

 leave the Yorkshire and Durham moors, and to seek their sustenance in lowland 

 districts. It is to be hoped that correspondents living in such localities as they 

 have been observed in will communicate to the Naturalist whether, now that the 

 weather has become milder, they appear to possess anything of the ' homing 

 instinct.' I rather doubt it myself, for I remember to have heard some years ago, 

 during a similar winter to the present, large packs of grouse were seen flying out 

 in the North Sea, off the coast of Caithness, by the crews of different fishing smacks. 

 This would appear to show that the migration was haphazard, and without any 

 definite idea of terminus. I notice in the Naturalist for February the occurrence in 

 Nidderdale of a brood of light-coloured grouse. For two or three years an albino 

 grouse was observed on a moss near Holker, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire 

 in North .Lancashire, and it was shot, I think, in the autumn of 1884.— 

 Edward T. Baldwin, Woodcroft, Ul version, February 1886. 



Large flocks of grouse forced down from the moors by the storm were daily seen 

 during the recent heavy falls of snow to the east of Richmond, where there was 

 scarcely any snow. A large covey paid a visit to Richmond Parish Church, and 

 many flew over the town, and sought refuge in the woods southwards, while others 

 sat in the hedgerows, almost as tame as farmyard hens. A flock of twelve were 

 seen about three weeks ago, hovering near Ferryhill, a sight not remembered by 

 the oldest inhabitant of that village ; and near He worth, in the grounds at North 

 Learn, a hen grouse was seen resting on the lawn, the cock being put up next day 

 in the adjoining field. — T. H. Nelson, Bishop Auckland, February 21st, 1886. 



On the 1st of February a fine specimen of the Red Grouse {Lagopus scoticus) 

 was picked up near Seaham by the Marquis of Londonderry's keeper. It had, no 

 doubt, been compelled to leave the moors by the severe weather. — James T. T. 

 Reed, Ryhope, Sunderland. 



In addition to the above, I may state on the authority of numerous informants 

 that immense numbers of grouse have been observed in and around the borough of 

 Leeds, about twenty miles from the nearest moors on which they occur in any 

 quantity, one informant alone having seen as many as five hundred in one day, and 

 numerous other instances are given in the local newspapers. 



This remarkable emigration on the part of these most sedentary of birds is 

 not in any way attributable to the severity of the season, but simply to a most 

 unusual succession of meteorological conditions. We had first a heavy snow-storm 

 on the 24th of January, followed by a rapid partial thaw, accompanied by rain, 

 which in its turn was followed by a keen frost. The effect of this was to glaze the 

 snow-clad moorlands with an impenetrable coating of ice, and so totally prevent 

 the birds from reaching their food. This contingency does not occur to any extent 

 in ordinary severe seasons, or even in the extreme — almost Arctic — winters of 

 1878-9 and 1879-80. In such seasons the birds may leave the high moors and seek 

 the immediately contiguous lowlands, but seldom or never wander so far from their 

 habitat as upon the present occasion. It is to be feared that many of the birds will 

 not be able again to find their accustomed moorlands. Many have died of starvation, 

 and not a few, I regret to say, have been shot. — W. Eagle Clarke, Leeds, 

 February 20th, 1886. 



Naturalist, 



