THE BLACK GEOUSE. 159 



Chester, and although he often makes mention of seeing 

 and killing a few " Moor-fowl," he does not allude to any- 

 Black Grouse being observed or shot. In the neighbour- 

 hood of Lauder this bird does not appear to have been 

 known before the early part of the present century, for 

 Mr, Scott, late gamekeeper of Thirlestane Castle, informs 

 me that he was told by an old dyker named Chisholm 

 that about the time mentioned it was first seen in that 

 locality at a place called Langshaw, about six miles south 

 of Lauder. A specimen was shot at Woodhead Hill on 

 Lord Lauderdale's estate some time afterwards, and the 

 man who killed it had not seen a bird of the kind be- 

 fore. It was forwarded to the Earl, who was staying in 

 London at the time, and who sent word that it was a 

 Black-Cock. Mr Kelly, in his Account of some of the 

 Birds of Lauderdale, says : " Of the Berwickshire precincts 

 of Lauderdale the Black-game does not appear to have 

 been an acknowledged occupant till 1830."^ These state- 

 ments would seem to suggest that it was by no means a 

 plentiful bird in the county long ago. Unfortunately, very 

 little is said about the game, or birds generally, by the 

 writers of the reports on the various parishes in Berwick- 

 shire, which are given in the Old Statistical Account of 

 Scotland (1795), and not much more information on these 

 subjects is supplied in the New Statistical Account (1835). 

 This is to be regretted, for, if some notices of the wild 

 animals and birds found in each parish had been given, they 

 would now have been of great value for comparison with 

 the fauna in the respective localities at the present time. 

 One of the reporters in the New Statisticcd Account, who 

 alludes to the various kinds of game in his parish, is the 

 Ptev. George Fulton Knight, minister of Mordington, who, 

 writing in February 1835, states that the common varieties, 



1 Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, vol. vii. p. 523. 



