5o8 ' THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



three or four plantations are specially devoted to this bird, 

 where it is probably increasing ; this appears to be the case 

 also at Lartington, where it has been introduced, and is 

 fairly common in the fir woods, whence stragglers find their 

 way on to the adjoining moors ; Mr. E. B. Emerson shot 

 several examples on Bowes moor in the " seventies." 



In the Cleveland area Mr. Thomas Stephenson of Whitby 

 was told by Mr. W. H. Raw that Blackgame bred yearly 

 in Commondale until 1847 '■> ^ specimen obtained there is in 

 his possession, but, about the date mentioned, a pine planta- 

 tion, where they nested, was cut down and the birds 

 disappeared ; a few were turned down at Kildale in 1840, 

 by the late R. Livesey, and were occasionally found in the 

 neighbouring woods {Zool. 1845, p. 1112) ; I have been 

 informed by Mr. W. Cook, late keeper of Grinkle, that 

 some were introduced into East Cleveland about the 

 same year ; they bred along the moor edges, and were 

 from time to time killed in the fir plantations around Gerrick 

 until i860. The late Canon J. C. Atkinson reported a brood 

 of nine on Danby low moor in 1846, which died out, although, 

 to his knowledge, none were shot (" Moorland Parish," p. 309). 

 Odd birds were met with in Glaisdale until 1840, and in 

 Fryup until 1865. In 1872 Blackgame were re-introduced on 

 Lord Downe's Danby estate, but no evidence is forthcoming 

 as to their breeding there, though odd individuals occasionally 

 occurred in the neighbourhood. In the winter of 1864 a 

 Black-cock took up his quarters in a rabbit warren on the 

 cliffs near Loftus, where it remained till spring. Sir A. E. 

 Pease remarks that an old gamekeeper, named Pearey, 

 formerly in his employ, could remember Blackgame being 

 common at Hutton in the early part of the past century ; 

 the last indigenous nest was seen about 1852. Several pairs 

 of birds were turned out at Birk Brow, near Guisborough, 

 in i860, and there was a brood that year at Waupley. Within 

 the past few years I have had intelligence of a few examples 

 seen on the Cleveland Moors, and so recently as 1903 Lord 

 de LTsle and Dudley, writing on i6th December, says a 

 Black-cock was observed on the moors near Guisborough in 



