BLACK GROUSE. 507 



Valley several attempts have been made to acclimatise it ; 

 eggs were set imder domestic hens and chicks were reared, 

 but they gradually died off or disappeared ; similar results 

 attended efforts in the same direction at Whitewell in Bowland, 

 the last specimen obtained there being a Grey-hen, shot on 

 Holden Clough in 1885 ; nor has any greater success been 

 achieved at Arncliffe in Wharfedale. Near Huddersfield 

 it has been naturalized at Meltham, where a few pairs still 

 breed, and some are killed annually on the moors. On the 

 Bluberhouse estate in Washburndale it was formerly not 

 uncommon, as is shown by the following extract from Sir 

 Thomas Frankland's gamebook for 1798 : — " Pullan, keeper, 

 says that when a boy he shot nine Blackgrouse one morning 

 on these moors, and that his mother made them into a pie 

 for the haymakers." It had evidently greatly decreased 

 after that period, for some were turned down by Mr. J. Yorke 

 of Pateley Bridge, but soon disappeared. The present 

 owner. Lord Walsingham, writing to Mr. W. Eagle Clarke 

 on 14th September 1886, says " I have killed two, and seen 

 one other since this moor has been mine ; the last killed 

 was in 1875, the last seen in 1877." A more recent instance 

 of its occurrence is mentioned by Mr. William Storey of 

 Fewston, who saw a male and two females in a plantation 

 in February 1895. In Arkengarthdale and Swaledale the 

 Black Grouse is found at Kexwith in the New Forest, where 

 it breeds in small numbers, and is slightly increasing {Nat. 

 1892, p. 323) ; it is fairly numerous on Col. Wade Dalton's 

 Barden and Hauxwell moor, between Leyburn and Richmond, 

 and also on a small moor about three miles north-west of the 

 latter town ; a few brace occur on Stainton moor, and an 

 occasional brace on Carperby moor. In Wensleydale it 

 breeds annually on Bellerby Moor ; odd birds are found on 

 Lord Bolton's moors, and it has also been seen on the East 

 Witton moors, near Colsterdale, but the numbers do not 

 appear to increase. 



In the extreme north-west corner of the county near 

 Sedbergh, a few, probably wanderers fi^om Westmorland, 

 occasionally nest in Garsdale, In Upper Teesdale district 



