# Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Grouse

See also Grouse on Wikipedia; Grouse on Wikipedia, Grouse in the 11th edition; and the disclaimer.
​GROUSE, a word of uncertain origin, 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 Lin- nasus, the Lagopus scoticus of modern systematists more particularly called in English the Red Grouse, but not a csntury ago almost invariably spoken of as the Moor-fowl or Moor-game. The effect which this species is supposed to have on the British legislature, and therefore on history, is well known, for it is the common belief that parliament in these days always rises when the season for Grouse- shootinor besrins ; but even of old time it seems to have excited on one occasion a curious kind of influence, for we may read in the Orkneyinga Saga (ed. Jonaeus, p. 356 ; ed. Anderson, p. 168) that 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 likewise inhabits similar situations throughout Wales and Ireland, but it does not naturally occur beyond the limits of the British Islands, 1 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 who looks further into the matter can doubt of its common origin
[ Red Grouse. ]
with the Willow-Grouse, Lagopus albus (L. subalpinus or L. saliceti of some authors), that inhabits a subarctic zone from Norway across the whole continent 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 sub sists, and with which in most men s minds it is associated; 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 contrives to nourish in the New World where heather scarcely exists, and a "heath" in its strict sense is unknown. It is true likewise that the Willow-Grouse always becomes white in winter, which the Red Grouse never does ; but then we find that 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
1 It has been successfully, though with much trouble, introduced by Mr Oscar Dickson on a tract of land near Gottenburg in Sweden (Svenska Jdgarfvrbundets Nya Tidskrift, 1868, p. 64 et alibi], and seems likely to maintain itself there, so long at least as the care hitherto bestowed upon it is continued.
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 than those named above the two species are precisely alike. No distinction can te dis covered in their voice, their eggs, their build, nor in their anatomical details, so far as these have been investigated and compared. 2 En connexion too with this matter it should not be overlooked that the Red Grouse, restricted as is its range, varies in colour not inconsiderably according to locality, so that game-dealers of experience are able to pronounce at sight the native district of almost any bird that comes to their hands. Other peculiarities of the Red Grouse tLe excellence of its flesh, and its economic importance, hich is perhrps greater than that of any other wild bird in tie world hardly need notice here, and there is not space to dwell upon that dire and mysterious malady to which it is fr&lt; m time to time subject, primarily induced, in the opinion of many, by the overstocking of its haunts and tie pro pagation of diseased offspring &gt;y depauperized parents. 3 Though the Red Grouse dees not, after the mariner of other members of the genus Lagopiis, leccme white in winter, Scotland possesses a species of tie genus which does, This is the Ptarmigan, 4 L. miitiis or L. afy.imis, which diffein far more in structure, station, and habits from the Red Grouse than that does from the Willow-Grouse, and in Scot land is far less abundant, haunting only tie highest and n:cst barren mountains. It is said to have foimerly 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, tut at an elevation far above the growth of trees, and it occurs on the Pyrenees, and on the Alps. It also inhabits northern Russia, but its eastern limit is unknown. In North America, Greenland, and Iceland it is repiesented by a very nearly allied foim so much so indeed that it is mly at certain seasons that
2 A very interesting subject for discussion would be whether Layout scoticus or L. albus has varied most from the common stock of both. We can here but briefly indicate the mere salient points that might arise. Looking to the fact that the former is the only species of the genv.s which does not assume -hiteclothing in winter, an evolutionist might at first deem the variation greatest in its case ; but then it must be borne in mind that the species of Lagojnts which turn white differ in that respect from all other groups of the family Telracmidce. Further more it must be remembered that every species of Lagopus (even L. leucurus, the whitest of all) has its first set of rcmiges coloured brown. These are dropped when the bird is about half-grown, ar.d in all the species but L. scoticvs white rtmigesnTe then produced. If therefore, as is generally held, the successive phases assumed by any animal in the course of its progress to maturity indicate the phases through which the species has passed, there may have been a time when all the species of Lagopus wore a brown livery even when adult, and the white drtss donned in winter has been imposed upon the wearers by causes that can be easily suggested, for it has been freely admitted by naturalists of all schools that the white plumage of the birds of this group protects them from danger during the snows of a protracted winter. On the other hand it is not at all inconceivable that the Bed Grouse, instead of perpetuating directly the more ancient properties of an original Lagopus that underwent no great seasonal change of plumage, may de rive its ancestry from the widely-ranging Willow-Grouse, which in an epoch comparatively recent (in the geological sense) may have stocked Britain, and left descendants that, under conditions in which the assumption of a white garb would be almost fatal to the preservation of the species, have reverted (though doubtless with some modi fications) to a comparative immutability essentially the same as that of the primal Lagopus.
3 On the Grouse-disease the papers of Prof. Your.g in Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, i. p. 225, and Dr Farquharson, Edinb. Med. Journal, No. 263, p. 222, may be advantageously consulted.
4 James I. (as quoted by Mr Gray, B. W. Scotland, p 230) writing from Whitehall in 1617 spelt the word " Termigaut," and in tliisfoim it appears in one of the Scots Acts in 1621. Taylor the " water poet," who (in 1630) seems to have been the first Englishman to use the word, has "Termagant." How the unnecessary initial letter has crept into the name is more than the writer knows. The word is admittedly from the Gaelic Tannachan, meaning, according to some, "a dweller upon heights," but thought by Dr T. M Lauchlan to refer possibly to the noise made by the bird s wings in taking flight.