CHAPTER V
THE GROUSE AND OTHER BIRDS
IN August when so many people are either shooting or eating that delectable bird—the grouse—a few words about him and his kind will be seasonable. "Grouse" is an English word (said to have meant in its original form "speckled"), and by "the" grouse we mean the British red grouse, which, though closely related to the willow grouse, called "rype" (pronounced "reepa") in Norway—a name applied also to the ptarmigan—is one of the very few species of birds peculiar to the British Islands. The willow-grouse turns white in winter, and is often called the ptarmigan, which it is not, though closely related to it. The willow-grouse inhabits a sub-arctic zone, which extends from Norway across the whole continent of Europe and Asia, and through North America, from the Aleutian Islands to Newfoundland. The red grouse does not naturally occur beyond the limits of the British Islands. It does not turn white in winter, and the back of the cock bird is darker in colour, as is also the whole plumage of the hen bird, than in the willow-grouse. The red grouse lives on heather-grown moors; the willow-grouse prefers the shrubby growths of berry-bearing plants interspersed with willows, whence its name. No distinction can be discovered in the voice, eggs, build, and anatomical details of the two species. The red grouse and the willow-grouse were, at no very distant prehistoric period, one species, but the race which has become isolated in these islands has just the small number of marked differences which I have mentioned, and it breeds true, and therefore we call it a distinct "species." In Scotland, the red grouse is called "muir-fowl," and a century ago was almost invariably spoken of in England as moor-fowl, or moor-game. It is found on moors from Monmouthshire northward to the Orkneys, and inhabits similar situations in Wales and Ireland.
The red grouse and the willow-grouse belong to a section or "order" of birds which are classified together because they all have many points in common with "the common fowl" or jungle-cock and the pheasants. That order or pedigree-branch was named by Huxley Alectoromorphæ, or cock-like birds, perhaps more simply termed Galliformes, Gallus being the Latin name for "chanticleer." When there is a question of the groups recognized in the classification of animals, it is well to bear in mind, once for all, that the biggest branches of the animal pedigree are called "phyla" (or sub-kingdoms); that these have branches or sub-divisions which are called "classes" (birds are a class of the phylum Vertebrata). Classes divide into "orders"; these often are subdivided into "sub-orders." Orders comprise each several smaller branches called "families," families branch into "genera," and each "genus" contains a number of "species" which have diverged from a common ancestral form, and become more or less stable and unchanging (but not unchangeable) at the present day. The individuals of a species are distinguishable by certain marks, shape, and colour from the individuals of other species of the genus. They breed true to those points when in natural conditions, and show some differences of habit, locality, and constitution which emphasize their distinction as a separate "species."
The order Galliformes of the class Aves or birds is one of some eighteen similar orders of birds. It contains several families, namely, the grouse-birds, the partridges, the francolins (formerly introduced into Italy from Cyprus), the quails, the pheasants, including the common fowl or Gallus, the peacocks, the turkeys, and, lastly, the guinea-fowls. The mound-builders and the South American curassows (very handsome birds to be seen at the Zoological Gardens) are families which have to be separated from the rest as a distinct sub-order. Fifty years ago the pigeons were placed in one order with the galliform birds, which was termed "Rasores," or scratching birds; but they are now separated under the name Columbiformes.
All the galliform birds are specially agreeable to man as food, and the domesticated race of the jungle-fowl—for which we have no proper English name, except that of "the" fowl[1]—is second only to the dog in its close association with man. It seems to have been domesticated first in Burma, and was introduced into China about 1000 B.C., and through Greece into Europe about 600 B.C. It is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, nor by Homer, nor figured on ancient Egyptian monuments. It was called "the Persian bird" by the Greeks, indicating that it came to them from the Far East through Persia. The common or barn-door fowl is assigned to the genus Gallus, of which there are four wild species. It is very closely related to the pheasants (genus Phasianus, with several "local" species); indeed, so closely that, when pheasants and "fowls" are kept together in confinement they will sometimes interbreed and produce vigorous hybrids. The peacocks are Indian, and with them is associated the Malay Argus-pheasant. They share with the turkeys, which are North American in origin, the habit of "display" by the male birds when "courting"—a habit which we see in a less marked form in the strutting, wing-scraping, and cries of the pheasants, chanticleers, and grouse-birds. The various species of partridges are confined to the temperate regions of the Old World, but the word is wrongly applied in America and Australia to other kinds of birds. The guinea-fowls are African, and so are the francolins and quails, the latter migrating to the South of Europe. It is an interesting fact that, when the turkey was first brought from America, about 1550, a confusion grew up in Europe between it and the guinea-fowl. The turkey was given a genus (Meleagris) to itself by Linnæus, who called it "M. gallopavo," whilst the guinea-fowl was called "Numida meleagris." We know, at present, other "species" of Meleagris besides M. gallopavo, and other species of Numida.
[1] "Chanticleer" is the name given to the cock-bird of this species in the very ancient story of "Renard the Fox."
Now we revert to the grouse-birds, a family for which the zoologist's name is Tetraonidæ. They all have the beautiful crimson arch of bare knobby skin above each eye which gives its chief beauty to our grouse. The family contains several genera and included species. The largest species is the capercailzie (a Gaelic word), or cock of the wood, called by the French "coque du bois," by the Germans "auerhahn" (auerhuhn for the hen bird), and by the Norwegians "tiur." It is placed in the genus Tetrao (which gives its name to the "family"), and receives the specific name "urogallus." This fine bird was formerly native in England, as well as in Scotland and Ireland, and is found in the pine forests of Europe from Spain to Lapland and Greece. It has been re-established in Scotland since 1838. An allied species is found in Siberia. The black grouse (often called black cock and grey hen) is a second species of the genus Tetrao, namely, T. tectrix. It is often called "Lyrurus tetrix." The French name for it is "coq de bruyère"; the German is "birkhahn." It is a smaller bird than the capercailzie, but frequently produces hybrids with that species. The beautifully curled tail-feathers are favourite adornments for the hat of mountaineers and hunters in the Tyrol and Switzerland.
Though the word "grouse" may have been first applied (as some think) to the black cock, it is now the proper appellation of the red grouse. This bird is placed by zoologists in the genus Lagopus—the members of which are easily distinguishable from other Tetraonidæ by the fact that their feet and toes are well covered with feathers. "L. scoticus" is the scientific name of the red grouse. Being a purely British bird, it has no foreign designations. "L. saliceti" is the name of the allied willow-grouse, which has an endless variety of names, owing to its great range of distribution. The willow-grouse is often called ptarmigan, and is sold as such to the number of thousands by poulterers in our markets, but it is not the true ptarmigan. Owing to the fact that its plumage is quite white in winter, there is much excuse for the confusion. The name "ptarmigan" is the Gaelic word "tarmachan," and no one has explained how the initial "p" came to be added to it. The bird called in Scotland tarmachan or ptarmigan is a third species of Lagopus. It is much rarer in Scotland than the red grouse, and lives in high, bare ground. It is numerous at an elevation far above the growth of trees in Norway, and occurs also in the Pyrenees and the Alps. It turns white in winter (as do all the species of Lagopus except the red grouse), and differs in many features of structure from the red grouse and the willow-grouse. It is called "L. mutus." A fourth species of Lagopus is L. rupestris, of North America, Greenland, Iceland, and Siberia. Spitzbergen has a fifth species, L. hemileucurus, a large form. The sixth and smallest species of Lagopus is the L. leucurus of the Rocky Mountains. There are yet further some excellent grouse-like birds, which are separated to form other genera distinct from Lagopus. Though they do not inhabit the British Islands, some of them are brought occasionally to the London market. The hazel-hen of continental Europe is one of these, and is considered to be the most delicate game-bird that comes to table. It is placed in the genus Bonasa, and receives the specific name "sylvestris." The French call it "gelinotte" (under which name various kinds of cold-storage grouse are often served in London clubs and restaurants), the Germans "hasel-huhn," and the Scandinavians "hjerpe." It is a purely forest bird. It is represented in North America by four other species, of which the best known is Bonasa umbellus, called by the Americans the ruffed grouse or birch-partridge.
Another genus of Tetraonidæ, or grouse-birds, is called "Canachites," and contains the species known as the Canadian spruce-partridge, Franklin's spruce-partridge, and the Siberian spruce-partridge. Nearly allied to these is a genus Dendragapus, with three North American species. Then we have the sage-cock of the plains of California (Centrocerus urophasianus), three species of sharp-tailed grouse (genus Pediocætes), and "the prairie hen," of which three species are placed in the genus Tympanuchus. The United States have, undoubtedly, a great variety of grouse-like birds. Nevertheless, a year ago I met in Paris an American from the neighbourhood of Boston who told me that he should have to desert his native land and come to live in Europe, because he could not obtain a regular supply of game-birds for his table in the eastern States. He was eating a Scotch grouse at the time with evident satisfaction.