The Red Grouse is found on upland heather moors and is unique to the British Isles. It is considered by some authorities to be a species in its own right (Lagopus scoticus), but it is more usually seen as a subspecies of the Willow Ptarmigan or Willow Grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus).
Early December seems a good time to write about this bird because the 10th of December is, to my mind, the “glorious tenth”, marking the end of the grouse slaughtering season that began on the so-called “glorious twelfth”, i.e. the inglorious 12th of August when grouse-hunting becomes legal for four months.
For eight months of the year, the Red Grouse skulks contentedly deep in the moorland heather, occasionally giving away its presence with its “go-back” call. But from mid-August to mid-December the poor bird is deliberately flushed into the air so that it can be peppered with gunshot by trigger-happy morons who have paid a fortune for the privilege. The dispatched birds are then despatched to swanky London restaurants, where mindless diners with more money than sense can enjoy themselves chewing on its gamey meat while picking lead shot from between their teeth.
But that’s enough grousing about the annual grouse massacre. I shall now move on to the story of a North American grouse that bears the name of a Briton who never encountered it.
Taxonomists have identified 16 or more subspecies of the Willow Ptarmigan/Grouse. Progressing east from Britain’s scoticus, you would come across a succession of races as you pass through Scandinavia, into Russia, across the breadth of Siberia, over the Bering Strait into Alaska and right across Canada back to the Atlantic coast. This near circuit of the northern hemisphere ends with a race that is endemic to the Canadian island of Newfoundland and is known as Allen’s Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus alleni).
Why do I single out this subspecies for special mention? Because my background is as a pharmacist and, according to the fascinating book ‘Whose Bird’, by Bo Beolens and Michael Watkins, this race was named in honour of a prominent British pharmacist.
William Allen (1770–1843) was one of the founders of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (now the Royal Pharmaceutical Society) and had the honour of being elected its first president in 1841. He practised his profession in London at the then well-known Plough Court Pharmacy, which grew into one of Britain’s largest drug companies, Allen & Hanburys. (A&H was eventually absorbed into Glaxo, which after further mergers is now GlaxoSmithKline.)
Allen’s scientific achievements led to fellowship of both the Linnaean Society and the Royal Society. Outside his chosen profession he was known as a philanthropist and a leading anti-slavery campaigner.
I am not aware that Allen had even the slightest interest in game birds, and he would certainly not have been familiar with the one that now bears his name because it was not identified as a distinct race until 40 years after he died. It was given its moniker in 1884 by Leonhard Hess Stejneger, a Norwegian-born US ornithologist and herpetologist who identified a number of new species and subspecies, particularly during expeditions to Canada and Alaska.
‘Whose Bird’ does not say why Stejneger picked on William Allen when he named the Newfoundland race of willow grouse. But it was certainly not unusual in the 19th century to honour public figures through the names given to newly discovered creatures.
By the way, in case you ever need to refer to Stejneger himself, it seems that his name is pronounced STEDGE-nay-guh or stedge-NAY-guh — or maybe stedge-NEDGE-uh, or perhaps stedge-NEE-guh or stedge-NEE-juh or even STEEDGE-nigger. I found all these options here. So take your pick.
Stejneger’s own name — however you may pronounce it — has been assigned to a petrel and a scoter, not to mention 13 species or subspecies of reptile. In the UK he is perhaps best known for Stejneger’s Stonechat (Saxicola stejnegeri), particularly because a bird initially identified as this Asian species spent some time at Dungeness in the winter of 2016–17. Unfortunately for twitchers who dashed off to the south coast to add a new species to their British lists, DNA testing of the bird’s droppings showed that it was simply a washed-out example of our familiar European Stonechat (S rubicola).
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