The repeated endeavours of the Committee to acquire specimens resulted in one hen solely being obtained from Donegal. There may be little doubt that the blacker birds of the Highlands of the north of Scotland are extra ceaselessly white noticed beneath than the birds obtained farther south. At Scrafton, Middleham, the majority have white beneath, and all are darkish purple or vivid purple. It was much less to be anticipated that examples each of the pink sort and of a darker type, bordering on the black, should have been met with in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Westmorland. This hen (No. 1217) was a really typical instance of the buff-barred sort, and it certainly differed from anything procured both in Scotland, England, or Wales. Or, one might say that in passing from the north of Scotland southward and westward, there may be an rising tendency to the shiny crimson and dark purple sorts of Grouse, which culminate in the very characteristically brilliant pink bird of Wales and of the Midlands of England, by which the predominating color of the feathers of the breast and beneath parts usually is purple with wonderful damaged black cross-traces, whereas these cross-traces are sometimes nearly absent. Nevertheless, the white spotting shouldn’t be confined to the blacker or to the darker birds, for it could also be quite a conspicuous characteristic in the vibrant purple birds of Wales and England, though in the lowlands and within the north of England, especially in Yorkshire, it is a uncommon character, only exceptionally met with.
It’s, however, the exception within the south, whether it’s on the red or black or intermediate type. Dumbartonshire, nevertheless, and Argyllshire are stated to provide extra birds of a vibrant purple sort than different counties, and each these counties fall in with Sutherlandshire as forming a part of the west coast of Scotland. Two others are, nonetheless, so darkish as to come with problem beneath the class of crimson birds. Within the Committee’s assortment, the first or purple type is effectively represented from all parts of the country, and follows very a lot the identical distribution because the crimson sort of the cock Grouse. The Committee’s collection contains five hundred and eighty skins of the Red Grouse, together with 5 hundred and forty adult birds of both sexes and forty chicks and pullets. Committee’s collection of Grouse skins, but by the interesting collection made by Mr T. E. Buckley now in the Cambridge Museum. An analysis of the larger part of the collection of skins is given within the Table on p. Hence there was some motive for thinking that, until the chance for gathering a series of pure bred British Red Grouse skins had been taken by the Committee, the identical broad opportunity may not have occurred again earlier than the introduction of overseas species had turn out to be widespread.
The most important collection of skins is therefore that of the male birds in winter plumage, and it so occurs that this set, both as regards intercourse and plumage, is greatest tailored by its normal uniformity to offer some end result when organized map-wise over a large outline of Scotland and England. 1. That the overall uniformity could be very far more marked than may need been anticipated considering the character for variability which has at all times been attributed to the fowl; the variability is lost in the mass, although it’s seen in people. But this is a difficulty which can increase fairly than decrease, and it is possible that the purity of the British breed (at present the one species of bird peculiar to our islands), may earlier than lengthy be completely lost by the introduction of a international species, the Willow Grouse, on the mistaken supposition that the latter is freer from the parasite of “Grouse Disease.” The overseas species has already been introduced right here and there, and there was some interbreeding with our own Red Grouse. Turning next to the female Red Grouse, no lower than five distinct varieties are described by Mr Ogilvie-Grant: a pink type, a black form, a white- spotted type, a buff-noticed type and a buff-barred type.
From Stirling, Selkirk, Northumberland, and Wicklow only one or two have been examined, however in Wales the red sort is nearly always met with. Caithness produced a extremely black hen fowl (No. 418), the intercourse of which could not probably have been determined from its plumage. Sex and town explores modern issues such as sexuality and femininity, and it’s all instructed with an important sense of humour. The moths are out in April and may, and the males may be seen on sunny days flying at an awesome pace over heaths, moorlands, and mosses, also about the borders of woods. Simpl.I consider that you’ll hear issues of greater second; for this can be a most accomplished Philosopher, and a fantastic Mathematician, and hath confuted Tycho in the businesse of the Comets, and new Stars. Nay, farther, it is critical, that not one of the issues to be imitated, or any part of them, be truly amongst colours, in the event you would be ready therewith to symbolize all issues; for should there be amongst them v. gr. 2. That, permitting for a great many exceptions, there’s actually a higher tendency to blackness in the birds of the northern Highlands than in those of the south.