74 HABITS. 



Nilsson makes mention of three other varieties, hut as 

 a scientific description would weary the reader, I shall 

 content myself with saying that two of them are now in 

 the Stockholm Museum. 



Sterile females, which have assumed in degree the 

 plumage of the other sex, are also occasionally met with. 

 That represented in the annexed illustration, and now 

 preserved in tlie Lund Museum, is not only of a mucli 

 darker colour than the common Grey-Hen, but her tail is 

 forked in the same manner as that of the cock. 



During spring and summer, the Black-Cock feeds on 

 birch-buds, tender leaves, plants, heather, and berries, 

 such as the red whortleberry, the bleabei'ry, &c., and on 

 insects and larvae; as also, when procurable, on grain, 

 more especially oats, in fields of which, prior to their being 

 cutj I have seen and shot a good many of these birds. In 

 potato fields, moreover, I have now and then met with and 

 killed them; but whether they were there for the purpose 

 of feeding or taking shelter, I cannot exactly say. In 

 the winter time, however, it subsists almost wholly on 

 birch-buds and juniper berries, the latter of which are 

 always obtainable, however deep the snow may be on 

 the ground. 



Water is indispensable to the Black-Cock ; and it is, 

 in fact, not without example that the want of it during 

 certain years has, in some districts, visibly diminished 

 their numbers. In dry summers, moreover, one always 

 finds these birds unusually numerous about springs and 

 near the shores of lakes, rivulets, and water-courses. 



Their chief resort, in Scandinavia at least, are pine 

 woods interspersed with deciduous trees, more especially 

 the birch. The deep recesses of the forest, which are the 

 favourite haunts of the Capercali, this bird would seem 

 to shun, keeping, on the contrary, more to the confines of 

 the woods and to the borders of the numerous and exten- 



