farther south. Nevertheless, the white spotting is not confined to the blacker or to the darker birds, for it may be quite a conspicuous feature in the bright red birds of Wales and England, though in the lowlands and in the north of England, especially in Yorkshire, it is a rare character, only exceptionally met with.
Mr Ogilvie-Grant, in his "Handbook to the Game Birds," 189G, says: "The ordinary varieties of the male may be divided into three distinct types of plumage: a red form, a black form, and a white-spotted form."[1]
The red form, he says, "is mostly to be found on the low grounds of Ireland, the west coast of Scotland, and the Outer Hebrides";[2] and this Red type,
cocks. statement is borne out not only by the Committee's collection of Grouse skins, but by the interesting collection made by Mr T. E. Buckley now in the Cambridge Museum. Similar birds have been obtained in some numbers from Caithness, Sutherland, the Lewes, and Inverness-shire. From Stirling, Selkirk, Northumberland, and Wicklow only one or two have been examined, but in Wales the red type is almost always met with. Welsh birds are often most typically and uniformly very bright red. Dumfriesshire also undoubtedly produces a large proportion of the same red type.
Bright red birds are not commonly characteristic of Ross-shire, Stirlingshire, or Northumberland, notwithstanding the fact that an occasional example of this type may be found in these counties. Dumbartonshire, however, and Argyllshire are said to produce more birds of a bright red type than other counties, and both these counties fall in with Sutherlandshire as forming part of the west coast of Scotland.
The following specimens have been figured to illustrate the red type of the cock Grouse: —
Pl. v. Upper surface: red type in winter plumage.
Male Grouse, No. 630. Wales, 18.3.07.
Pl. iii. Under surface: red type in winter plumage.
Male Grouse, No. 407. Glendoe, Inverness-shire, 7.12.06.
Pl. vii. Under surface: red type, changing from winter to autumn plumage.
Male Grouse, No. 915. Forfarshire, 4.6.07.
- ↑ "Handbook to the Game of Birds," p. 27.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 28.
