202 



BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



than the impracticable grouse. Indeed, the presence of 

 blackgame at this season more than compensates for the 

 relatively smaller numbers of grouse found in those 

 districts where both these species of game-birds are found 

 co-existent. In such, the pursuit of blackgame possesses 

 many altogether charming features, both in the variety it 

 affords after the August grouse-shooting and also in the 

 changed scenes amidst which it is carried on. Whilst 

 in August one's eye had rested day after day upon an 



Young Blackcock — ist of September. 



almost unvarying, unbroken sea of purple heather, 

 glorious in its fullest bloom, and with a golden cloud of 

 pollen streaming away to leeward of the course of dog 

 and man ; now, in September, the gunner's sport lies amidst 

 different scenes, no less wild, and hardly less beautiful. 

 For seas of heather substitute rolling - prairie-land clad 

 in rough grass, rush, and bracken, interspersed with 

 self-sown birch and hazel. Grey boulders strew the 

 broken ground ; while here and there some hoary crag 

 or moss-grown scaur afford foothold for prehensile pine 



