OF THE BKITISH ISLANDS. 45 



Habits. The Black Grouse is a bird of the trees, but not quite as much of 

 a forest species as the Capercaillie. It loves wild, broken country on the border 

 of the moors, in birch and fir plantations, and the romantic hollows below the level 

 plateaux of heath and ling, where the ground is clothed with bracken and bramble, 

 strewn with rocks, and traversed by dancing streams which sometimes widen out 

 into expanses of rush-grown bog and cotton-grass. In our southern counties 

 favourite haunts of this bird are the wild commons and small isolated tracts of 

 moorland, where pine woods are in close proximity, and plenty of underwood and 

 trees are to be found. The Black Grouse is extremely partial to districts where 

 water abounds, either swampy ground or pools and streams. It is a skulking, 

 shy, and wary bird, seldom being seen until it is flushed, either from the ground 

 or the trees ; and even when feeding on the bare hillsides, which it often does, 

 some distance from the plantations, it is ever on the alert, and runs and conceals 

 itself the moment it is alarmed. I have seen Black Cocks take refuge in clumps 

 of rushes growing on the hillside, running from one tuft to another until the 

 plantation was reached. The flight of the Black Grouse is powerful and rapid, 

 but the bulk of the bird seems to lend it a laboured character. The Black Cock, 

 except during the moulting season, in July and August, spends much of his time 

 in the trees, and always prefers to roost in a tree ; but the Grey Hen is more of a 

 ground bird. I have often remarked the partiality of this species for tall bracken 

 in autumn ; and at that season it also wanders from the covers to the stubbles. 

 During long-continued snowstorms it sometimes burrows into the drifts for shelter. 

 The food of the adult Black Grouse is almost exclusively of a vegetable nature. 

 In summer the seeds of rushes and the tender tops and leaves of ling and heath 

 and other plants are the birds' favourite fare ; in autumn, grain and wild fruits and 

 berries are partaken of ; whilst in winter, willow twigs, birch catkins, alder buds, 

 and leaves of the ling and heath are eaten. Black Game, like Eed Grouse, always 

 seem bewildered and stupid during misty weather, and then often allow a much 

 nearer approach as they sit on the half-leafless trees. I might also remark for the 

 benefit of any sportsman unaware of the circumstance, that while Eed Grouse 

 always endeavour to fly down wind, Black Game seek to fly up wind. The 

 formation of the tail may have some influence on this. When much shot at, 

 Black Game generally mount up high into the air, and fly right away to some 

 distant cover. This species also appears to have an antipathy to flying up- 

 hill, and when flushed on a slope they usually pass to a lower level. 



Nidification. In the matter of its reproduction the Black Grouse very 

 closely resembles the Capercaillie. It is polygamous, and the Black Cocks perform 

 much the same peculiar antics during the pairing season to charm the Grey Hens 

 as we have already described in the preceding chapter. Certain meeting or "laking" 

 places are chosen in their haunts, to which numbers of males resort early in April ; 

 and here battles are of frequent occurrence for the females, which are attracted by 



