The grouse in health and in disease : being the popular edition of the report of the committee of inquiry on grouse disease / edited by A.S. Leslie ; assited by A.E. Shipley.

  • Great Britain. Committee of Inquiry on Grouse Disease
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The grouse in health and in disease : being the popular edition of the report of the committee of inquiry on grouse disease / edited by A.S. Leslie ; assited by A.E. Shipley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Grouse of the north of Europe, Asia, and America (L. albus), and the British bird (L. scoticus)—with which alone we are concerned—indigenous in no other country. All the forms of the genus Lagopus are anatomically identi- cal, but the Red Grouse differs from the remaining members in that it does not turn white in winter. It has been thought to be merely the British representative of the Willow Grouse, though it differs from that species even in its summer plumage, and never possesses white wing - quills. It varies considerably in coloration, as will be seen from the following Plumage, quotation from “ The Cambridge Natural History.” “ The male in both summer and winter is more or less chestnut-brown above, with black markings and a reddish head ; the lower parts are similar, but are usually spotted with white. In autumn the brown of the upper parts becomes buff and the lower surface is barred with buff and black. Mr Ogilvie- Grant recognises three types of plumage in the male, a red form with no white spots from Ireland and Western Scotland, a blackish variety comparatively rarely found, and another largely spotted with white below or even above. Intermediate specimens constitute the bulk of our birds. The female exhibits, moreover, a buff-spotted and a buff-barred form, but in summer she is typically black above with concentric buff markings, and buff below with black bars. Her autumn plumage, which continues throughout the winter, is black, spotted with buff and barred with rufous.”1 Mr Ogilvie - Grant has recently published in the “ Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club ” 2 an elaborate account of the changes of plumage undergone by the Red Grouse, and of the points wherein he differs from Mr Millais and Mr Wilson ; but this is not the place to enter into controversial matters, and our readers must form their own opinions on the subject.3 Various reasons have been suggested for the absence of a white winter plumage in the British bird; 1 “Cambridge Natural History,” vol. ix., Birds, p. 338. Cambridge, 1899. 2 “British Ornithologists’ Club,” vol. xxii. p. 122. London, 1910, 3 Vide also chap. ii. pp. 42 et seq.
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