Page:GrouseinHealthVol1.djvu/132

62 for in certain individual Grouse in the autumn-winter plumage there is no reliable characteristic in the feathering or in the supraorbital comb (PI. ., Figs. 3 and 4), or in any external part of the bird, by which the sex can be distinguished. In most Red Grouse, even in the vast majority, the confusion of sex is not possible, for it is a matter of common knowledge that for a great part of the year the cock and the hen are so wholly unlike one another as to make it difficult for any one who did not know the birds to believe them to be of the same species. Even in the summer months when the cock puts on a plumage closely simulating the breeding plumage of the hen, there is a difference in the general tone and colour, and confusion is not likely. But in the autumn and winter it is comparatively easy to mistake the sex of some individuals, for when the hen has put on her autumn plumage for the winter, and the cock has put on his winter plumage, certain individuals of opposite sex are then indistinguishable, even to the practised eyes of the experienced gamekeeper.

Generally speaking, the feathers of the head and neck give the best indication as to sex in the autumn-winter plumage. In the male the red colouring is, as a rule, far more uniform than in the female. In the male also there is, as a rule, an absence of black markings on these red feathers, except on the upper part of the head, on the crown, and nape of the neck. The cheeks are generally a clean bronze or chestnut-red colour; so are the feathers of the chin, throat, fore-neck, and upper breast, giving the bird a very rich uniform red colour all over the head and neck. In the hen, as a rule, the whole of the feathers of these parts are crossed by narrow black bars, which five her more of the mottled and broken colouring which the cock bird only begins to assume in the early summer when he puts on the first feathers of his autumn plumage. The feathers of the chin are a very useful indication of sex from August to November, practically throughout the shooting season, for the chestnut-red feathers which can be found on the chin of the cock Grouse in every month of the year will be sought for in vain in the hen at this time. Even in December and January they are so imperfectly red as compared with the same red feathers in the male that one may almost say that red feathers are to be found on the chin of the hen only from February to July, when they become conspicuous on account of the contrast in colour with the increasing yellowness of the breeding plumage. These red feathers persist from her previous