CALLING. ( 158 ) TETRAONID^. 



THE BLACK GROUSE. 



BLACK-GAME, BLACK-COCK THE MALE; 



GREY HEN THE FEMALE. 



Tetrao tetrix. 

 W^z Black^CocU, %\)z (15rep l^en* 



Tke livelong day Lord Marmion rode : 

 The mountain path the Palmer show'd, 

 By glen and streamlet winded still, 

 Where stunted birdies hid the rill. 

 They m.ight not choose the lowland road, 

 For the Merse forayers were abroad, 

 Who, fired with hate and thirst of prey. 

 Had scarcely failed to bar their way. 

 Oft on the trampling band, from crown 

 Of some tall cliff, the deer looked down ; 

 On wing of jet, from his repose 

 In the deep heath, the Black-Cock rose. 



Scott, Marmion. 



Although the great extension of cultivation during the last 

 hundred years and the enclosing and draining of many 

 parts of the moors and boggy grounds of the county have 

 considerably reduced the area suitable for Black Grouse, 

 yet it is probable that, in certain localities, they are more 

 plentiful than they were in the beginning of the present 

 century, when shootings were not preserved, and birds of 

 prey were unmolested by gamekeepers. In support of this 

 conjecture I may state that in some extracts from a diary 

 which was kept by Captain Bell of the Berwickshire Militia, 

 from 1802 to 1826, kindly supplied to me by Mr. Hardy, 

 I find that, between 1803 and 1814, he frequently shot 

 over the moors at Kettleshiel, Bedshiel, Scarlaw, Longfor- 

 macus, Monynut, Barnside, Godscroft, Quixwood, and Whit- 



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