Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/235

Rh G R G E 223 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). Spitsbergen 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,

[ Ptarmigan. ]

the smallest and perhaps the most beautiful of the genus, L. leucurus, which has all the feathers of the tail white The very curious and still hardly understood question of the moulting of the Ptarmigan could not possibly be dis cussed within these limits reference has already been made to it in another article (BIRDS, vol. iii. p. 776). The bird, however, to which the name of Grouse in all strictness belongs 1 is probably the Tetrao tetrix of Linnaeus

[ Blackcock. ]

the Blackcock and Greyhen, as the sexes are with us re spectively 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

1 See footnote, p. 221.

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 un happily conferred the name of T. mlokosieuiczi. Both these birds have much in common with their larger congener the Capercally (see vol. v. p. 53) and its eastern representative. We must then notice the species of the genus Bonasa, of which the European B. sylvestris is the type. This does not inhabit the British Islands ; unfortunately so, for 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 trans atlantic congener B. itmbellus, 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 (?. faldpennis. Nearly allied to these birds is the group known as Dendragapus, containing three large and fine forms D. obscurus, /X fidiginosus, and D. richardsoni all peculiar to North America. Then we have 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. cohimbianus, 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, as witness the enormous numbers that are not only consumed there, but exported to Europe. It will be seen that the great majority of Grouse belong to the northern part of the New World, and it is much to be regretted that space here fails to do justice to these beautiful and important birds, by enlarging on their interesting distinctions. They are nearly all figured in Elliot s Monograph of the Tetraonince, and an excellent account of the American species is given in Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway s North American Birds (iii. pp. 414-465).

GROVE. The almost universal occurrence, at one stage or another in the religious and social development of the races of mankind, of the practice of worshipping by pre ference under or among trees to which a peculiarly sacred and inviolable character is attached, is a fact too well known to require particular illustration here. Its explana tion is to be sought partly in obvious considerations of physical convenience, but even more in certain psychical phenomena which may still be made matters of direct observation and experience (&quot; Lucos, et in iis silentia ipsa adoramus,&quot; Pliny, H.N., xii. 1; &quot; Secretum luci . . . et admiratio umbrae fidem tibi numinis facit,&quot; Sen., Ep. xli.). It does not appear to have any necessary connexion with tree-worship, another very widely diffused practice, on which, and on its possible connexion with ancestor-worship, some suggestive remarks will be found in Spencer s Principles of Sociology. It has sometimes been alleged as a character istic difference between the Semitic and the Aryan races that the former show a tendency to select single trees for sanctuaries, while the latter are generally found worshipping in groves ; and this generalization, though liable to many exceptions, is really borne out at least by the familiar in dications to be met with in Scripture. The word &quot; grove &quot; so often met with in the authorized version of the Bible, is nowhere there correctly employed. In Gen. xxi. 33 and

1 Sam. xxii. 6 (margin) it is used as a rendering of the Hebrew word 7^ of which &quot; tamarisk&quot; is the proper translation. In every other instance in which it occurs (Ex. xxxiv. 13 ; Deut. xii. 3 ; xvi. 21 ; Judg. iii. 7 ; vi. 25, 28 ; Isa. xvii. 8 ; Mic. v. 14 ; and often in Kings and Chronicles), where the LXX. translate aAo-o?, and the Vulgate lucus, the 