Fig. 48.–Red Grouse. Lagopus scoticus. × ¼.
Little need be said of the habits of this well-known species, nor will space allow of a description of the methods of killing it by driving and so forth; but it may be observed that it utters a clear ringing note, us well as the familiar cok-cok-cok, and feeds upon grain and tender shoots of ling (Calluna) and heather (Erica), besides other plants. The nest of moss, grass, and the like is placed amidst heather, and contains from six to ten, or even more, yellowish-white eggs, thickly blotched and spotted with fine red-brown, purplish, or black. In England the Red Grouse is found as far south as Derbyshire and Shropshire, in Wales to Glamorgan; while unsuccessful attempts have been made to introduce it into Surrey and elsewhere. In Ireland it is rather thinly distributed, but in Scotland it reaches the Orkneys, and an occasional brood has been known to be reared in Shetland, where a few pairs were turned down between 1858 and 1883. It has also been acclimatized in Southern Sweden. Lagopus albus, the Willow Grouse of Northern Europe, Asia, and America, termed the "Dal-riporre" in Scandinavia, is completely white in winter, except for the lateral rectrices, which are chiefly black; in summer it resembles the Red Grouse, but is distinguished by the white wing-quills. The female is smaller. The habits are similar to those of the last-named, but a preference is shewn for willow- and birch-scrub; shoots of these trees or of Vaccinium, with various moorland berries, furnishing the food. A performance recalling the "lek" of the Capercaillie is said to be given by the male in spring, a fact also true of the succeeding species.[[170]] L. mutus, the Ptarmigan or Fjeld-riporre, is in summer blackish-brown with grey and rufous markings, the median tail-feathers, abdomen, and most of the wings being white. The back becomes grey in autumn. The female is reddish-buff, barred with black. In winter both sexes are white, with black and white rectrices, and in the male with black lores. Nearly all the so-called Ptarmigan in English poulterers' shops are Willow Grouse. The haunts are on the higher parts of mountain-ranges, where stony ground abounds, but somewhat lower altitudes are sought after the breeding season. The food consists of shoots and berries; the cry is croaking, and best heard in misty weather. From five to ten eggs, with blacker markings than those of Red Grouse, are deposited in a hole scraped in the earth, with little or no lining, the nest being commonly quite exposed, though equally often under shelter of a boulder. Ptarmigan are decidedly difficult to see among the similarly-coloured stones. In Scotland they occur on most of the higher hills from Arran northwards, though no longer in Dumfries and Galloway; while abroad they occupy Northern Europe, with the Pyrenees and the Alps, and possibly Northern Asia. In the lighter L. rupestris the adult male never has a black breast or a grey back in autumn. This form occurs in North Asia and North America, with Greenland, Iceland, and Japan, many local races having been described as distinct species or sub-species; while the larger L. hyperboreus (hemileucurus), with a white base to the tail, inhabits Spitsbergen; and L. leucurus, with entirely white rectrices–the smallest member of the genus–ranges along the Rocky Mountains from British Columbia to New Mexico.
Of fossil forms Coturnix and Palaeortyx occur in the Upper Eocene of the Paris Basin, Taoperdix in the calcareous deposits of Languedoc of the same age; Palaeortyx is again found with three species of Palaeoperdix, in the Middle Miocene of France, while Phasianus is not only recorded from this formation, but from the Upper Miocene of Oeningen and the Pliocene of Attica, in the latter of which Gallus accompanies it. Meleagris has been discovered in the Miocene of Colorado, and the Post-pliocene of New Jersey; Gallus in the Pliocene of France, Palaeotetrix and Pedioecetes in that of Oregon; and, finally, bones of Lagopus have been brought to light in the French Plistocene, and those of Tetrao urogallus at Kent's Hole near Torquay and in the caves of Teesdale in England.
Fam. VII. Opisthocomidae.–The curious and highly specialized Hoatzin (Opisthocomus cristatus) has been the subject of much discussion among systematists, as the outcome of which it is necessary to adopt for it a special Sub-Order Opisthocomi. Buffon classed it with the Curassows, P. L. S. Müller and Gmelin placed it in the Linnean genus Phasianus; but Illiger recognised a genus Opisthocomus, while Huxley and Garrod fully admitted its claim to higher rank than that of a Family. The habits are to some extent Ralline, and certain points of structure indicate a considerable affinity to the Cuculi.
The sternum is utterly unlike that of any other species, the anterior portion of the keel being aborted, and the posterior correlated with a flattened area of thick naked skin, on which the bird mainly rests. These modifications are no doubt connected with the extraordinarily large crop, which is supported by the furcula and the fore-part of the breast-bone, being received in a cavity of the pectoral muscles; the whole organ is decidedly muscular, and contains two divisions with a partial constriction between them. The body is long and thin, the bill is strong with basal serrations on the maxilla; bristles surround the gape, and the eye-lids have distinct lashes–a rare fact among birds. The reticulated metatarsi are fairly stout; the toes are long; the hallux being unusually developed and the claws slightly curved. The short rounded wings have ten primaries and nine secondaries. The nearly even tail is elongated, with ten stiff feathers. The plumage in both sexes is olive above with white markings, and dull rufous below; the long loose crest and the tip of the tail are yellowish, and a patch of bare bluish-black skin surrounds the eyes. The tongue is sagittate, the furcula is Y-shaped and ossifies anteriorly with the coracoids, an aftershaft is present, the down of the adults is sparing, while a small amount–of a reddish-brown colour–is observable in the newly-hatched young. The syrinx has one pair of muscles inserted on the distal end of the trachea.
The Hoatzin or "Anna," which is about the size of a Pigeon, ranges from Colombia to the Lower Amazons and Bolivia, where it haunts the sides of lagoons, creeks, and rivers covered with a thick growth of low trees or bushes, which project over the stream or the mud left bare by the tide. In these tangled solitudes it skulks during the heat of the day, while at other times it may be observed squatting upon the branches, mainly supported on the patch of hardened skin already mentioned. When disturbed the bird flies off awkwardly for some forty yards with a violent flapping motion, or progresses by leaps from bough to bough, erecting its crest and expanding its wings and tail. The note is sharp and shrill, and has been described as a hissing screech. The food consists of leaves and fruit of the prickly Drepanocarpus lunulatus, of the Aroid Montrichardia arborescens, of Avicennia nitida, and of a species of Psidium. The conspicuous nest, placed on low trees or shrubs, is a loose platform of spiny twigs and sticks with a softer lining, which contains from three to five yellowish-white eggs of a Rail-like appearance, spotted with reddish-brown and lilac. The young, which can see and run as soon as they are hatched, have a claw on both index and pollex, by means of which they creep about the thickets and hook themselves over the branches, assisted by the bill and feet. They can also swim and dive. A strong musky odour is given off by the adults, whence they are termed "Stinking Pheasants" in Guiana. The male has been asserted to be polygamous.
Fig. 49.–Hoatzin.
Opisthocomus cristatus. × ⅕.