BLACKGAME 81 



a mixture of old cocks and liens, or all old cocks, and 

 those in which none hut young hirds of the year will 

 be found. Sometimes during the wdnter packs are 

 composed entirely of old Blackcocks, the hens during 

 this period going about in small parties or more often 

 singly. On a winter's evening, too, if you happen to 

 be near a roosting -place, you wdll generally see the 

 Greyhens coming to roost singly. Packs of Blackgame 

 may consist of from half a dozen birds to the wdiole of 

 the individuals of the species on the ground. Though 

 some authors say that Blackgame do not pack, such is 

 not the case. I have twice seen packs at Doune, in 

 Perthshire, which the sportsmen present agreed must 

 have numbered two or three hundred birds at least. 

 When sitting on the stubbles one of these jDacks looked 

 in the distance so like an immense flock of Rooks, that 

 they w'ere at first mistaken for them, l)ut there was not 

 the slightest doubt as to their identity when they rose. 

 From the stubbles they made straight for the moor about 

 a mile off, and there baffled all attempts to get them 

 forward till late in the evening, when, following their 

 usual tactics of keeping to one favourite pass, they came 

 to the butt in which I was, in two big lots of about a 

 hundred each, the rest having broken back. It w^as one 

 of those occasions on wdiich you seem literally lost in 

 birds, and which makes you feel how utterly feeble one's 

 single little "pop, pop" is amongst the serried masses of 

 creatures that for the moment surround you. At such 

 times one suddenly wishes for fifty guns with fifty pairs 

 of hands to work them to stem the torrent of the passing- 

 flood. 



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