PREFACE. 
IX 
the autumn, until the following spring, when they totally disappeared. 
A strict search was made for them, but in vain. It was imagined that 
they might have taken flight to the Wicklow hills, about five miles 
from the place in which they were, and have been shot there. 
Eed Grouse. — (Varieties in colour) see p. 47. November 1849. — 
1 saw in the shop of Mi’. Glennon, bird-preserver, Dublin, two speci- 
mens exhibiting a great deal of fawn-colour in their plumage, a few 
feathers only, on the belly, being of the ordinary fine rich brown. 
They are extremely similar to each other, probably of the one 
brood, and were killed at the same place. The colours have such a 
patch-work appearance that they cannot be well described. The usual 
dark brown is replaced by very pale dull brown, and the black markings 
by others of a dusky hue. A uniform very pale yellowish fawn-colour 
appears in irregular patches from head to tail, both on the upper and 
under surface of the body ; about as much being of this colour as of 
the mixed brown, with dusky markings. These birds presented n# 
beauty of appearance. 
Another variety which I saw in the same place was remarkably 
handsome, owing to pale grey or white taking the place of brown 
throughout its entire plumage, and all the black markings remaining 
as usual. It was thus like a ptarmigan {T. lagopus) in summer 
plumage. Another bird quite similar to this had been received in a 
previous year by Mr. Glennon, but from a different county. All these 
varieties were killed in Ireland. 
The Quail (see p. 66) is so little known in Great Britain, com- 
paratively to what it is in Ireland, that the following detailed observa- 
tions are given here as supplementary to those contained in another 
part of this volume : — they were made subsequently to its being printed. 
Holywood House, County Down, 1849. — As this place, where I resided 
in the summer and autumn of the present year, is a favourite locality 
for quails — perhaps as much so as any in Ireland, I embraced the 
opportunity of making various notes upon the species, of which the 
following is the result. During the mouth of August, from morning 
