THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
In July the light edges of the feathers of the upper parts of the body 
become worn and faded, and the general colour is darker than in May. 
Eye-wattle scarlet; bill black. 
Total length 14 inches ; wing 7*4 inches ; tail 4’1 inches ; tarsus 1*3 inch. 
Adult male in autumn-plumage. (August to October). — General colour of 
the upper parts of the body, chest, upper breast and sides grey, finely 
mottled with black, and sometimes with buff; throat barred with black 
and white; quills, outer wing -coverts, and rest of the underparts white. 
The middle pair of tail-feathers vary much ; in some birds they are black, 
or black mottled with sandy-brown, and tipped with white, in some 
one is black, tipped with white, the other pure white; again in others 
both feathers are pure white. (Plate XII.) 
Adult female in autumn-plumage. (August to October). — Very similar to the 
male, but usually to be distinguished by retaining a few of the buff and 
black feathers of the summer -plumage. The middle pair of tail-feathers 
are usually sandy -brown, mottled with blackish, and tipped with white, 
but in some birds one or both feathers may be pure white. (Plate XII.) 
In both male and female the feathers on the legs and toes are moulted 
and renewed between June and September, and the claws are also shed, 
as in the red grouse. 
Adult male in winter-plumage. (November to March). — ^All the plumage is 
pure white, with the exception of a black patch extending from the base 
of the bill to behind the eye, and the tail-feathers, which, like the quills, 
remain unchanged, after the autumn-moult. (Plate XIII. Fig. 1.) 
Adult female in winter-plumage. (November to March). — Similar to the 
male, but with the black patch in front of the eye absent or undefined. 
(Plate XIII. Fig. 2.) 
Birds of the year differ only from the adult in having the outer primary 
quills mixed with blackish along the terminal portion of the shafts. 
Young birds in first plumage have the general colour of the head, upper 
parts of the body, chest and sides black, rather finely barred and mottled 
with rufous -buff, most of the feathers having a whitish spot at the ex- 
tremity; the primary quills brownish -black, mottled with buff on the 
outer web ; the rest of the underparts whitish, obscurely barred with 
dusky; tail-feathers black, with irregular bars and markings of buff. 
Nesting. — Very similar to that of the red grouse. 
The descriptions of the summer-, autumn- and winter -plumages of 
the adult birds given above may be considered as fairly typical of the 
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