158 OUR RARER BIRDS 



call-note. And so these combats proceed until all the females 

 are won, when the strife ceases and the birds retire to seek 

 their morning meal, but again assemble in the evening, and 

 not unfrequently in the middle of the day as well. Through- 

 out the laying season the Blackcock is a noisy and pugnacious 

 creature, and once the full complement of eggs is deposited 

 by the female, he quits her society, probably for ever. He 

 now becomes a peaceable bird ; his pugnacious disposition 

 has vanished, and he seeks the company of his own sex to 

 feed and flock with them for the remainder of the year. 



Xow let us follow the female birds and devote our atten- 

 tion to them. You rarely indeed find the Gray Hen's eggs 

 till early May. The nesting-site is a varied one, but as a rule 

 well and artfully concealed. It may be where a pine tree 

 has been snapped by the wintery blasts or broken by the 

 snow wreath, and its branches are almost buried by the 

 bracken and brambles ; or it may be under a dense mass of 

 briars, or not unfrequently beneath a thick bush of heather 

 or a tuft of fern. But very little nest is made — a hole is 

 scratched out and lined with a few bits of herbage : fern 

 fronds, bits of heath, or bracken leaves. In this rudely formed 

 nest the Gray Hen deposits from six to ten eggs. They are 

 brownish-buff in ground colour, spotted and blotched with 

 rich brown of various shades, and are like those of the Caper- 

 caillie, only smaller. But one brood is reared in the year, and 

 the parent and her offspring usually keep together through- 

 out the winter. In some cases the nests contain as many as 

 sixteen eggs ; but these are the produce of two hens — a fact 

 which is proved by seeing one large brood of young birds 

 being tended by two females. This often takes place where 

 the birds are at all numerous. 



Throughout all the list of our British birds I do not think 

 we can find a more striking instance of the utility of colour 

 in the plumage of birds than is to be seen in the Gray Hen's 



