British Birds in Their Haunts

by C. A. Johns

Plumage chestnut brown, marked on the back with black spots and beneath with black lines; a fringe of small white feathers round the eyes, and a white spot at the base of the lower mandible; a crimson fringed band above the eyes; some of the feathers of the abdomen tipped with white; tail of sixteen feathers, the four middle ones chestnut with black bars, the rest dusky; feet and toes covered thickly with grey hair-like feathers. Female—the red eye-lid less conspicuous; colours not so dark and tinged with reddish yellow, the black spots and lines more numerous. Length sixteen inches. Eggs reddish ash colour, nearly covered with blotches and spots of deep red-brown.

The diminution of the number of Pheasants in France, owing to a relaxation of the efforts formerly made to protect them, and the abundance of the same birds, in those parts of England where unceasing care is taken of them in severe or protracted winters, tend to prove the great difficulty of preserving a foreign bird in a country which is not in every respect adapted to its habits and constitution. On the other hand, the undiminished abundance of Red Grouse in Great Britain, in spite of the absence of all artificial protection, and notwithstanding the vast quantity which annually fall a prey to vermin, poachers, and sportsmen, proves as satisfactorily that where a bird has become abundant, in a country in all respects suited to its constitution and producing an inexhaustible supply of its natural food, it is impossible to extirpate it. If we ever had occasion to adopt a bird as a national emblem, the choice might for one reason fall on the Red Grouse. It is a native of the British Isles, and is found in no other country. On the moors of Scotland, the hilly parts of the north of England, the mountains of Wales, and the wastes of Ireland, it is as wild and free as the Gull on the sea-cliff. It frequents extensive heaths where man could not protect it if he would, and finds no stint of food where few living things can exist but insects and some of the larger rapacious animals which make it their special prey. Eagles, Falcons, Buzzards, Crows, Foxes, Martins, and Polecats, all wage against it incessant war; it is wholly without armour, offensive or defensive; yet its numbers are undiminished. And we may confidently say that, as long as there are large tracts of land in Great Britain unreclaimed, there will be Grouse.

Red Grouse must, occasionally, fall in the way of the wanderer over the Scottish moors, whatever may be the object of his rambles; but a sportsman alone is privileged to make the bird his study at all seasons. My sketch, therefore, of the Grouse is to be considered as taken, not from the limited observation which I have been enabled to make, when I have chanced to start a bird on the hills of Westmoreland or the Highlands, but to be compiled from the notes of others who have had more ample means of observing its habits.

"The Brown Ptarmigan, generally known by the name of Red Grouse, as compared with the Black Grouse, is met with in Scotland on all kinds of surface, provided it be covered with heath, whether Calluna vulgaris (Ling) or Erica cinerea (Common Purple Heath), from the level of the sea to the height of about two thousand feet. The low sandy heaths of the eastern counties of the middle division appear to be less favourable to it than the more moist peaty tracts of the western and northern districts, where the shrubs on which it feeds attain a great size."

Its food appears to be much the same as that of the Black Grouse, to which it is similar in many of its habits; but it never perches on trees. It has, moreover, a decided predilection for the national grain of Scotland. Hence the cultivation of small tracts of land with oats in the neighbourhood of moors where it abounds is an unprofitable labour.

Its name, Lagópus (Hare-footed), is equally appropriate as descriptive of its thickly-clothed foot and its fleetness as a runner; by some French ornithologists it is enumerated among Velocipedes, for the latter reason. On ordinary occasions it does not fly much, but keeps concealed among the heath, seldom choosing to rise unless its enemy comes very near. Red Grouse pair early in the season, and build their nests generally on the borders between heath and lea ground, with a view to providing their young with an open nursery-ground, on which to learn the use of their legs, as well as a safe retreat on the approach of danger. The nest is loosely constructed of straws and twigs which may chance to lie about near the selected spot. The number of eggs is usually eight to ten; the hen sits very closely, allowing the shepherd almost to trample on her before she springs. The period of hatching is a perilous one for the chicks, for, as they break the shell, they utter a small but shrill chirp—a certain signal to some watchful Hooded Crow that a prey is at hand; he traces up the sound, drives the mother from her nest, and destroys the whole brood.

Once fairly hatched, the danger decreases; the young birds, while still quite small, show great readiness in concealing themselves. When disturbed they separate in all directions, crouch on the ground, squeeze between objects that seem to defy all passage, work their way through the cover, or, if they fancy that an eye is fixed on them, lie as motionless as stones. When so far grown as to be able to fly, they still prefer the shelter afforded by the cover; but if hard pressed the old cock usually rises first, with a cry which some compare to the quack of a Duck. The hen and young birds show no hurry in following his example, but take wing singly, and at unequal intervals—not like Partridges, which always rise in a covey. This is the period when they afford the easiest shot to the sportsman, who often puts them up almost beneath his feet, or under the very nose of his dogs. Later in the season a great change takes place, and this, it is said, whether the birds have been much harassed or not. Become cautious and wild, they no longer trust to concealment or swiftness of foot, but, discovering from a great distance the approach of danger, they rise most frequently out of shot, so that it requires skill and patience to get near them. A slight and early snow sometimes makes it more easy to approach them, at least for a few hours; but ordinarily, not even extreme cold, or a covering of snow a foot thick, appears to tame them at all. Under such circumstances, they collect in enormous 'packs', and betake themselves to some particular part of the moor from which the snow has been more or less drifted. These packs keep together during winter, and at the beginning of spring separate and pair, not, however, without some previous altercations; but these are soon over, and they lose much of their shyness, venturing close to the roads, and being little disturbed by the passage of the traveller.

THE PTARMIGAN
LAGOPUS MÚTUS

Winter plumage—pure white, a black line from the angle of the beak through the eye; outer tail-feathers black; above the eyes a scarlet fringed membrane; bill and claws black; tarsi and toes thickly clothed with woolly feathers. Female—without the black line through the eyes. Summer plumage—wings, under tail-coverts, two middle tail-feathers, and legs white; outer tail-feathers black, some of them tipped with white; rest of plumage ash-brown, marked with black lines and dusky spots. Length fifteen inches. Eggs reddish yellow, spotted and speckled with deep reddish brown.

This beautiful bird is the Schneehuhn, 'Snow-chick', of the Germans, the White Partridge of the Alps and Pyrenees, and the Gaelic Tarmachan. Whilst most birds shrink from cold, the Ptarmigan, on the contrary, seems to revel in it, and to fear nothing so much as the beams of the sun. Not even when the valleys rejoice in the livery of spring does it desert the snowy regions altogether, and, when the mist-wreaths clear away, it avoids the rays of the sun by seeking the shady sides of the mountains. Only when the northern regions or lofty mountains are so thickly covered with snow as to threaten it with starvation does it repair to districts where the cold is somewhat mitigated, but never lower into the valleys than where it may quench its thirst with snow. 'The male bird', says a field naturalist, 'has been seen, during a snow-storm in Norway, to perch himself on a rock which overtopped the rest, and to sit there for some time as if enjoying the cold wind and sleet, which was drifting in his face; just as one might have done on a sultry summer's day on the top of the Wiltshire downs, when a cool air was stirring there.'[42] The same writer observes: 'I have generally found the Ptarmigan concealed among the grey, lichen-coloured rocks on the summits of the fjelds, and so closely do they resemble these rocks in colour that I could scarcely ever see them on the ground; and sometimes when the practised eye of my guide found them, and he would point out the exact spot, it was not until after a long scrutiny that I could distinguish the bird within a dozen yards of me. Frequently we would find them on the snow itself, and many a time has a large circular depression in the snow been pointed out to me, where the Ptarmigan has been lying and pluming himself in his chilly bed. He is a noble bird, free as air, and for the most part uninterrupted in his wide domain; he can range over the enormous tracts of fjeld, seldom roused by a human step, and still more seldom hunted by man. When the winter clothes his dwelling in a garb of snow, he arrays himself in the purest and most beautiful white; when the summer sun melts away the snow, and the grey rocks appear, he, too, puts on his coloured dress, and assimilates himself once more to his beloved rocks. But the young Ptarmigans are my especial favourites: I have caught them of all ages; some apparently just emerged from the egg, others some weeks older; they are remarkably pretty little birds, with their short black beaks and their feathered toes; and so quickly do they run, and so nimble and active are they in escaping from you, that they are soon beneath some projecting stone, far beyond the reach of your arm, where you hear them chirping and calling out in defiance and derision. The call of the old Ptarmigan is singularly loud and hoarse; it is a prolonged grating, harsh note, and may be heard at a great distance.' This has been compared to the scream of the Missel Thrush; but Macgillivray says it seems to him more like the croak of a frog.