BLACK GROUSE. 63 



evidence of the species having ever been indigenous in 

 Ireland, and attempts at introduction made in Antrim, 

 and recently by Colonel Cooper, of Markree Castle, Sligo, 

 have resulted in failure. 



In Norway and Sweden the Black Grouse is widely dis- 

 tributed wherever there are woods and moorlands up to the 

 limit of the birch forests in about 69° N. lat., and it even 

 ascends the fells beyond the birch belt. Rare on the heaths 

 of Denmark, and scarcely known in Holland and Belgium, 

 except towards their southern and eastern frontiers, it be- 

 comes tolerably numerous in suitable districts of Germany, 

 and is more or less abundant on both sides of the mountain 

 ranges of Central Europe from the Alps to the Carpathians. 

 A resident in the wooded portions of Lombardy and Liguria, 

 it even occurs as a straggler in the Apennines down to the 

 Modenese. In France it appears to be confined to the 

 mountains on the eastern frontier, but Crespon seems 

 inclined to believe in its occurrence in the Cevennes, which 

 would tend to strengthen the hitherto unsupported state- 

 ment made by Dr. Companyo that it is found in the Eastern 

 Pyrenees : a district which differs in many important natural 

 features from the Central and Western portions of that 

 chain, from which it is not recorded. In Finland, the 

 greater part of Russia, and even in Poland, it is generally 

 distributed, extending as far as Sarepta on the Volga ; but 

 in the Caucasus it is unknown, its place being taken by a 

 very distinct although closely allied species, named, after its 

 discoverer, Tetrao mlokosiewiczi. The male of the latter is a 

 smaller and more slender bird than the Black-cock, and its 

 entire plumage is of a deep glossy black, as may be seen on 

 reference to Mr. Dresser's fine plate in the ' Birds of Europe,' 

 vol. vii. Beyond the Ural the Black Grouse stretches across 

 Siberia with the limit of the forest growth to Mantchuria 

 and Northern China, but precise details as to its southern 

 distribution are as yet wanting. Siberian examples are more 

 feathered about the legs than European ones. 



The Black-cock is polygamous, and, like the Capercaillie, 

 has his pairing- grounds, which are visited somewhat earlier 



