274 



BBITISH BIBDS 



The black grouse is most abundant and generally distributed in 

 Scotland and the northern counties of England, but is everywhere 

 decreasing in numbers. In England its decline has been most 

 marked, and in the southern counties, where it was formerly com- 

 mon, it ceased to exist, except in the New Forest, where a few 

 birds survive. It has been reintroduced in some locaUties, but so 

 far has not thriven well. In Ireland it is not indigenous. 



Fig. 93 Blackcock. jL natural size. 



Its large size, rich blue-black plumage, white wing-bar, scarlet 

 wattles, and strange lyre- shaped ornament, formed by the outward- 

 curving feathers of the tail, give the black cock an exceedingly fine 

 appearance, and he is, perhaps, the handsomest of our game-birds. 

 He inhabits both woods and moors, but is most partial to grounds of 

 a mixed character, such as are found on the fringe of a moor, 

 where woods and thickets are broken and varied with patches of 

 heath. 



The black cock is polygamous ; and at the end of winter many 

 birds meet together at an early hour of the morning, when the 

 males utter their powerful caU-notes, and strut to and fro, with tail 



