186 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
Black Game have occasionally been obtained in places 
far removed from their usual haunts. Byerley states 
that the bird has been shot on Kirby Moss;! and a 
Grey-hen, now in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, was 
killed on November 21st, 1892, by Mr. L. Ledsham, jun., 
in his garden at Boughton, near Chester? Mr. T. 
Worthington informs us that a Grey-hen was shot at 
Wythenshawe, near Northenden, some time in the 
seventies. 
RED GROUSE. 
Lacopus scoticus (Latham). 
Thousands of acres on the hills in the east of Cheshire 
are devoted to the preservation of the Red Grouse, and 
on many of the moors large bags are obtained. From 
the hills of Lyme southward to Bosley Minn, and east 
to the Derbyshire border, the bird abounds wherever 
the moorlands are uncultivated. In the upper part of 
the Goyt Valley and elsewhere in Macclesfield Forest, 
the hillsides for many miles are clothed with ling, 
heather, bilberry, and cranberry; cotton grass flourishes 
in the marshy spots; and on the highest ridges the 
cloudberry occurs in patches—furnishing ideal con- 
ditions for this species. In the north-east, where the 
hills along the Yorkshire border attain a height of 
nearly two thousand feet, the whole country above the 
rough hill-pastures, from Staleybridge to Woodhead, is 
one continuous grouse-moor. Although in spring and 
summer bird-life is plentiful, the Red Grouse is the 
only species that inhabits these moorlands throughout 
the year; and except in the worst weather, it may be 
1 Byerley, op. cit. p. 17. 2 Dobie, op. cit. p. 329. 
yerley, op p 7. I 
