GROUSE, a word of uncertain origin,[1] now used generally by ornithologists to include all the “rough-footed” Gallinaceous birds, but in common speech applied almost exclusively, when used alone, to the Tetrao scoticus of Linnaeus, the Lagopus scoticus of modern systematists—more particularly called in English the red grouse, but till the end of the 18th century almost invariably spoken of as the Moor-fowl or Moor-game. The effect which this species is supposed to have had on the British legislature, and therefore on history, is well known, for it was the common belief that parliament always rose when the season for grouse-shooting began (August 12th); while according to the Orkneyinga Saga (ed. Jonaeus, p. 356; ed. Anderson, p. 168) events of some importance in the annals of North Britain followed from its pursuit in Caithness in the year 1157.
The red grouse is found on moors from Monmouthshire and Derbyshire northward to the Orkneys, as well as in most of the Hebrides. It inhabits similar situations throughout Wales and Ireland, but it does not naturally occur beyond the limits of the British Islands,[2] and is the only species among birds peculiar to them. The word “species” may in this case be used advisedly (since the red grouse invariably “breeds true,” it admits of an easy diagnosis, and it has a definite geographical range); but scarcely any zoologist can doubt of its common origin with the willow-grouse, Lagopus albus (L. subalpinus or L. saliceti of some authors), that inhabits a subarctic zone from Norway across the continents of Europe and Asia, as well as North America from the Aleutian Islands to Newfoundland. The red grouse indeed is rarely or never found away from the heather on which chiefly it subsists; while the willow-grouse in many parts of the Old World seems to prefer the shrubby growth of berry-bearing plants (Vaccinium and others) that, often thickly interspersed with willows and birches, clothes the higher levels or the lower mountain-slopes, and it flourishes in the New World where heather scarcely exists, and a “heath” in its strict sense is unknown. It is true that the willow-grouse always becomes white in winter, which the red grouse never does; but in summer there is a considerable resemblance between the two species, the cock willow-grouse having his head, neck and breast of nearly the same rich chestnut-brown as his British representative, and, though his back be lighter in colour, as is also the whole plumage of his mate, than is found in the red grouse, in other respects the two species are precisely alike. No distinction can be discovered in their voice, their eggs, their build, nor in their anatomical details, so far as these have been investigated and compared.[3] Moreover, the red grouse, restricted as is its range, varies in colour not inconsiderably according to locality.
| Red Grouse. |
Though the red grouse does not, after the manner of other members of the genus Lagopus, become white in winter, Scotland possesses a species of the genus which does. This is the ptarmigan, L. mutus or L. alpinus, which differs far more in structure, station and habits from the red grouse than that does from the willow-grouse, and in Scotland is far less abundant, haunting only the highest and most barren mountains. It is said to have formerly inhabited both Wales and England, but there is no evidence of its appearance in Ireland. On the continent of Europe it is found most numerously in Norway, but at an elevation far above the growth of trees, and it occurs on the Pyrenees and on the Alps. It also inhabits northern Russia. In North America, Greenland and Iceland it is represented by a very nearly allied form—so much so indeed that it is only at certain seasons that the slight difference between them can be detected. This form is the L. rupestris of authors, and it would appear to be found also in Siberia (Ibis, 1879, p. 148). Spitzbergen is inhabited by a large form which has received recognition as L. hemileucurus, and the northern end of the chain of the Rocky Mountains is tenanted by a very distinct species, the smallest and perhaps the most beautiful of the genus, L. leucurus, which has all the feathers of the tail white.
| Ptarmigan. |
| Blackcock. |
The bird, however, to which the name of grouse in all strictness belongs is probably the Tetrao tetrix of Linnaeus—the blackcock and greyhen, as the sexes are respectively called. It is distributed over most of the heath-country of England, except in East Anglia, where attempts to introduce it have been only partially successful. It also occurs in North Wales and very generally throughout Scotland, though not in Orkney, Shetland or the Outer Hebrides, nor in Ireland. On the continent of Europe it has a very wide range, and it extends into Siberia. In Georgia its place is taken by a distinct species, on which a Polish naturalist (Proc. Zool. Society, 1875, p. 267) has conferred the name of T. mlokosiewiczi. Both these birds have much in common with their larger congener the capercally and its eastern representative.
The species of the genus Bonasa, of which the European B. sylvestris is the type, does not inhabit the British Islands. It is perhaps the most delicate game-bird that comes to table. It is the gelinotte of the French, the Haselhuhn of Germans, and Hjerpe of Scandinavians. Like its transatlantic congener B. umbellus, the ruffed grouse or birch-partridge (of which there are two other local forms, B. umbelloides and B. sabinii), it is purely a forest-bird. The same may be said of the species of Canace, of which two forms are found in America, C. canadensis, the spruce-partridge, and C. franklini, and also of the Siberian C. falcipennis. Nearly allied to these birds is the group known as Dendragapus, containing three large and fine forms D. obscurus, D. fuliginosus, and D. richardsoni—all peculiar to North America. Then there are Centrocercus urophasianus, the sage-cock of the plains of Columbia and California, and Pedioecetes, the sharp-tailed grouse, with its two forms, P. phasianellus and P. columbianus, while finally Cupidonia, the prairie-hen, also with two local forms, C. cupido and C. pallidicincta, is a bird that in the United States of America possesses considerable economic value, enormous numbers being consumed there, and also exported to Europe.
The various sorts of grouse are nearly all figured in Elliot’s Monograph of the Tetraoninae, and an excellent account of the American species is given in Baird, Brewer and Ridgway’s North American Birds (iii. 414-465). See also [Shooting].
(A. N.)