BLACK GROUSE. 307 



first nest observed was within a hundred yards of the spot 

 where they were first turned out. Some of the descendants 

 of these birds have strayed to the heathy districts between 

 Farnham and Bagshot, and have extended themselves as far 

 as Finchampstead in Berkshire. Black Grouse occur again 

 in Hampshire on the New Forest, and from thence along to 

 the westward in Dorsetshire ; they are found on Dartmoor 

 and Exmoor in Devonshire, and are abundant on the pro- 

 perty of Lord Caernarvon near Dulvarton, on the north- 

 eastern border of Devonshire, and the heaths of Somerset- 

 shire, from whence they are found in Worcestershire and 

 Staffordshire ; they are found also on most of the extensive 

 heaths of Shropshire, and on the Beswyn chain near Corwen. 

 It is included in the catalogue of the birds of Lancashire, 

 and from thence becomes more plentiful on proceeding- 

 northwards. 



Black Grouse are common over nearly the whole of Scandi- 

 navia. Linnreus met with it on his tour high up in the 

 forests of Lapland ; it is found in Russia, Siberia, Poland, 

 Germany, Holland, France, and along the whole chain of the 

 Alps, and other mountain ridges that are covered with forests, 

 and, according to Savi, in Italy. 



Havinof mentioned the tendency amonof Pheasants and 

 Grouse to breed one with another occasionally, without re- 

 striction to their own species, I may here particularise the 

 various examples of hybrids between the Pheasant and the 

 Black Grouse in the oixler in which they have been recorded. 

 The first is the bird noticed by Gilbert White of Selborne, 

 of which a coloured representation is given in some of the 

 editions of his w^ork. The subject being then new, the real 

 character of that specimen was a matter of doubt, till more 

 recent experience, and other examples, seemed to confirm its 

 origin. In June 1834, the late Mr. Sabine called the atten- 

 tion of the members present at a meeting of the Zoological 



X 2 



