RED GROUSE 
LAGOPUS SCOTICUS 
(Plates VI-X) 
Tetrao scoticus, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. i, p. 290 (1787); Seebohm, Brit. Birds, ii, p. 428 (1884). 
Lagopus scoticus, Leach, Syst. Cat., p. 27 (1816) ; Gould, Birds Europe, v, p. 252 (1837) ; 
Saunders ed. Yarrell, Brit. Birds, iii, p. 73 (1882); Millais, Game Birds, ip. 43, pis. and wood- 
cuts (1892) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. Birds, pt. xix (1893) ; Ogilvie-Grant, Ann. Mag. Nat. 
Hist. (6) xii, p. 62 (1893) ; id.. Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxii, p. 35 (1893) ; id., Ann. Scot. Nat. 
Hist. (1894), p. 129, pis. v and vi ; id., Handbook Game Birds, i, p. 27, pis. II and III (1895) ; 
Saunders, III. Man. Brit. Birds, p. 495 (1899) ; Millais, Nat. Hist. Brit. Game Birds, p. 37, 
pis. (1909) ; Wilson, P.Z.S. 1910, p. 1,000, pis. Ixxviii-xcv, xcvii-ci. 
Walsingham and Payne-Gallwey in “ Badminton Library,” Moor and Marsh, Grouse, 
(1886) ; Macpherson, in “Fur and Feather Series,” The Grouse, pp. 3-79, (1894). 
The Grouse in Health and in Disease, 2 vols. 4to (1911). 
N O group of birds, so far as we are aware, goes through so 
many, or such varied, annual changes of plumage as the 
members of the genus Lagopus, which includes the red 
grouse, the willow -grouse, and the four species of ptar- 
migan. Unlike the other members of this genus, which 
undergo three distinct changes of plumage in the year, in 
summer, autumn and winter, the red grouse has only two, but its chief 
peculiarity lies in the fact that the changes of plumage in the male and 
female occur at different seasons. 
The male has no distinct summer -plumage, but has distinct autumn- 
and winter -plumages, and retains the latter throughout the breeding- 
season. 
The female has a distinct and very complete summer -plumage, which 
is fully assumed by the end of April or the beginning of May; also a dis- 
tinct autumn-plumage, which is retained till the following spring. 
To put it more concisely, both male and female have two distinct moults 
during the year, but in the male they occur in autumn and in winter, and 
in the female in summer and autumn, the former having no distinct 
summer-plumage, and the latter no distinct winter-plumage. 
In the willow -grouse and the different species of ptarmigan there are 
three distinct changes of plumage in summer, autumn and winter in both 
male and female alike, the winter -plumage being white in all. 
The red grouse is considered by most ornithologists to be merely an 
insular form of the willow -grouse, and it might naturally be supposed 
that as the British species does not turn white in winter, such protective 
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