[2] It was successfully, though with much trouble, introduced by Mr Oscar Dickson on a tract of land near Gottenburg in Sweden (_Svenska Jagarforbundets Nya Tidskrift_, 1868, p. 64 _et alibi_). [3] A very interesting subject for discussion would be whether _Lagopus scoticus_ or _L. albus_ has varied most from the common stock of both. Looking to the fact that the former is the only species of the genus which does not assume white clothing 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 _Lagopus_ which turn white differ in that respect from all other groups of the family _Tetraonidae_. Furthermore every species of _Lagopus_ (even _L. leucurus_, the whitest of all) has its first set of _remiges_ coloured brown. These are dropped when the bird is about half-grown, and in all the species but _L. scoticus_ white _remiges_ are then produced. If therefore 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 dress donned in winter has been imposed upon the wearers by causes that can be easily suggested. The white plumage of the birds of this group protects them from danger during the snows of a protracted winter. But the red grouse, instead of perpetuating directly the more ancient properties of an original _Lagopus_ that underwent no great seasonal change of plumage, may derive 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 modifications) to a comparative immutability essentially the same as that of the primal _Lagopus_.