BLACK GROUSE. 185 
ORDER GALLINA, 
FAMILY TETRAONIDA, 
BLACK GROUSE. 
TETRAO TETRIX, Linnzeus. 
The breeding area of the Black Grouse in Cheshire 
is now restricted to the Hill Country of the Kast. The 
bird is absent from the treeless moorlands of Upper 
Longdendale, but is found sparingly in the plantations 
and wooded cloughs of the district lying between the 
Goyt and Dane to the east of Macclesfield. A few 
birds nest at Lyme and Bakestonedale Moor. Black 
Grouse are fairly plentiful in the woods of the Goyt 
Valley from Whaley Bridge to Goyts Moss, as well as 
in the wooded cloughs between Sutton and Bosley, and 
in the Dane Valley from the latter place to Wincle. 
Although now extinct on the Cheshire Plain, the 
Black Grouse used to breed on the wooded heaths, 
most of which have been brought under cultivation. 
Mr. J. C. Stivens informed Dr. Dobie that so recently 
as the sixties he used to get four or five brace in a 
day’s shooting in Delamere Forest ;! whilst in the early 
part of the century the bird was fairly plentiful at 
Rudheath, where it was often shot at roost on moon- 
light nights or by the light of torches.? It was also 
found at Roe Park, some three miles south of 
Congleton.” 
1 Dobie, op. crt. p. 329. 2 T, W. Barlow, Ms. 
