Tas day la especially set apart by a gondly number of ihe inhabitants of the British isles to the slaying and consumption of the grouse. On many "Highland hill and moor the sportsman, is keepers and his dogs will be out soon after breakfast, eager to test the reports of the numbers and condition of the birds, and to see fur himeelf whether they are healthy, wild, or scarce. Bat besides those. who go forth" filled with the somewhat anxious bopes of the sportsman, many more, districts and places where a living grouse was never soco, will all day long be enjoying anticipatory pleas sures of the consumption at dinner of the king of game, In one way or another the bird will be in the maude of more people in Britain to-day than, except the Turkey at Christmas time, any other feathered creature on any day all the year round, The popularity of the Michnolmas goose may be great, but it is confined to-a more limited class of people than those who consume the grouse; the phensaut is for the few, and the partridge, although he oan claim some kind of kinship with the grouse, is ® poor creature compared to his fur away cousin of the north, The tridgo las his day not very long Uke twelfth, bat it is tot received with the reverence which attaches to that anniversary; the First is as if it were consecrated to one of of the minor 5 ju the calendar of gourmets, Probably, as "more folk know Lom Fool, than Tom Fool knows,"
grant number of people at home pre-tond an interest in the grouse who have but the slightest, knowledge of either his appearance or flavour; but this sort of pretentious interest in him is similar lo that which many people display in precious stones, in rare wines, and other luxuries of the rich; but it proves what an esteemed delioncy the grouse is, Ho is one of the fow game birds of Europe and America which is not to be found in our neighbourhood in Chinn, for it is heresy to say that the sand grouse which is found in some parts of the north of China is anything but at the best poor relation of the moorfowl or red grouse of the Scottish, English or Irish moors. Nor can anything more than a mere paper claim, founded on the classification of naturalists, be pat forth to eubstantinte the relationship between the quail and the grouse. Indeed, quails and other birds which have been ranked as of the Tetrao family are more correctly but links between it and the Phasianida, and different naturalists refer them to one family or the other. The moorfowl or red grouse is peculiar to the Bri isles, and is indeed of a superior line to the commoner grouse who are scattered over great parts of the world, being of the lofty family of Piarmigan. His plumage is of a deep chestnut brown, marked on the back and wing-corerta with black spots, on (ho nuder-parts with andulating b lines, and on the four middle tail feathers he carries trans verso black lines. That is hie general uniform, but its colours vary slightly in different districts, In Perthebire and other inland counties the grouse wears dark bues, in the western: High. lands he aports a beaatifal rich red, while in low-lying diatriots his colours area very light brown, whioh be borrow
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.