IN August when so many people are either shooting or eating that delectable bird--the grouse--a few words about him and his kind will be seasonable. "Grouse" is an English word (said to have meant in its original form "speckled"), and by "the" grouse we mean the British red grouse, which, though closely related to the willow grouse, called "rype" (pronounced "reepa") in Norway--a name applied also to the ptarmigan--is one of the very few species of birds peculiar to the British Islands. The willow-grouse turns white in winter, and is often called the ptarmigan, which it is not, though closely related to it. The willow-grouse inhabits a sub-arctic zone, which extends from Norway across the whole continent of Europe and Asia, and through North America, from the Aleutian Islands to Newfoundland. The red grouse does not naturally occur beyond the limits of the British Islands. It does not turn white in winter, and the back of the cock bird is darker in colour, as is also the whole plumage of the hen bird, than in the willow-grouse. The red grouse lives on heather-grown moors; the willow-grouse prefers the shrubby growths of berry-bearing plants interspersed with willows, whence its name. No distinction can be discovered in the voice, eggs, build, and anatomical details of the two species. The red grouse and the willow-grouse were, at no very distant prehistoric period, one species, but the race which has become isolated in these islands has just the small number of marked differences which I have mentioned, and it breeds true, and therefore we call it a distinct "species." In Scotland, the red grouse is called "muir-fowl," and a century ago was almost invariably spoken of in England as moor-fowl, or moor-game. It is found on moors from Monmouthshire northward to the Orkneys, and inhabits similar situations in Wales and Ireland.