GROUSE, a family (Tetraonide) of galli naceous game birds with feathered feet or tarsi, inhabitants of the northern hemisphere. In North America our best-known species is the ruffed grouse (Bomar° umbellus) ; the "part ridge" of New England and the "pheasants of the Middle States. This bird, in one or other of its races, ranges all across the continent from Canada to Washington and southward in the higher ground, and is one of our best es teemed game birds. The rumbling drumming of the male is a familiar sound in the woods in early spring, and is effected by rapidly beating the wings against the body. On the prairies of the Central and Western States are several varie ties of pinnated grouse or prairie chickens (q.v.). In the Northwest occur the blue or dusky grouse (Dendragapus obscures) and the sage grouse, the largest on this continent. In Canada and the northernmost part of the United States occurs the Canada grouse or "spruce partridge"' (canadensis) with the allied Franklin s grouse (C. franklini) in the northern Rocky Mountains. The species to which the name grouse was originally applied, namely, the red grouse or moorf owl scoticus) of England, is the only bird M absolutely restricted to the British Isles. It is plentiful in suitable parts of Wales and northern England, but is especially numerous in the highlands of Scot land, where it is bred and preserved on moor lands of great extent, large areas of which are kept barren of other occupation for this pur pose. This, then, is the bird whose shooting,
permitted for a period following the 12th of August, attracts so large numbers of sportsmen annually to Scotland for the °grouse-shooting.* The sport may be followed in the ordinary method of shooting on the wing over dogs; but in many places is conducted as a battue. Grousemoors are owned and rented in large numbers, and have a status similar to that of deer-forests (q.v.). This grouse is a ptarmi gan, other species of which exist in the Arctic regions. (See PTARMIGAN). Other European grouse of importance are the blackcock and capercailzie (q.v.). Among works dealing es pecially with grouse and grouse-shooting are Lloyd, 'Game Birds and Wildfowl of Sweden and Norway' (London 1867) ; the volumes on 'Shooting') in the 'Badminton Library' (Lon don 1889) ; Alfalo, 'Sport in Europe' (Lon don 1901) ; Sandys and Van Dyke, 'Upland Game Birds' (in the Sportsman's Library, New York 1902) ; Coues, 'Birds of the Northwest' (Washington 1874); Malcolm and Maxwell, 'Grouse and Grouse Moors' (1910).