BLACK GROUSE. 361 



the mainland northwards. It is not an inhabitant of 

 Ireland. 



Breeding habits .- The Black Grouse, of course, is 

 a resident in the British Islands. Its favourite haunts 

 are wild broken country near the moorlands, birch and 

 fir plantations, and the rough valleys below the level 

 plateaux of ling and heath, where the ground is clothed 

 with bracken, gorse, and brambles, strewn with rock 

 boulders, and traversed by trout streams that sometimes 

 widen out into swamps covered with cotton-grass, rushes, 

 and other coarse vegetation. In more lowland districts 

 timbered commons and small tracts of moorland, sur- 

 rounded by pine woods and plantations, with a good 

 bottom growth, are its most attractive retreats. The 

 Black Grouse is polygamous, and the males perform 

 their courtship in a very similar manner to the preceding 

 species, having regular " leking-places " to which they 

 resort to show off and pair with as many females as 

 their prowess or charms can ensure. The males take 

 no further share in the domestic arrangements, but it is 

 said they sometimes join the females and their broods. 

 This must be very exceptional, however. The Gray 

 Hen, as the female is generally called, makes a slight 

 nest on the ground, under the shelter of a mass of 

 withered bracken, or a heap of brambles, or amongst 

 heath and ling, rushes, or bilberry wires. Sometimes it 

 is made by the side of a boulder, or under a fallen log 

 amongst long grass and fern. It is a mere hollow, care- 

 lessly lined with bits of fern, pine needles, dry grass, or 

 dead leaves. The female is a close sitter, and when 

 flushed hurries off into the nearest cover with little or no 

 demonstration ; but when the young are hatched her 

 actions are very different and most alluring. 



Range of egg colouration and measurement : 

 The eggs of the Black Grouse are usually from six to 



