B L A 



462 



15 L A 



Of flic southern counties of England, Hampshire, Dorset- 

 shire. Somersetshire, and Di-vonshiro possess t and now 

 and then it is teen in tho heathy parts of Sussex and Surrey, 

 la the New Forest, and the wild heaths un the borders of 

 ll.iinp*hire and Dorsetshire, HI tin- neighbourhood of Wirn- 

 borne, it is perhaps more common Iban it ii anywhere else 

 in the south. Tho Quantocks, and some other uncultivated 

 tracts in Somersetshire, and Dartmoor and Sudgemoor in 

 -lure, are its headquarters in those counties; but it 

 is comparatively rare. 



.Staffordshire has it sparingly, and Northumberland plen- 

 tifully. 



In the Highlands of Scotland the black-cock is abundant, 

 and it is found in some of the Hebrides. In North Wales 

 it occurs sparingly, where it is strictly preserved. 



Pennant says that some had been shot in Ireland, in the 

 county of Sligo, where the breed was formerly introduced 

 out of Scotland, but expresses his belief that, at the time he 

 v> r.'te, they were all exterminated. Some may be seen in 

 aviaries, in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park 

 for instance; but they languish in confinement, and all at- 

 tempts to domesticate them have failed. 



Sclby's account of the haunts and habits of the black- 

 cock in a state of nature is so good, that wo shall give it in 

 Ins own words : 



* The bases of the hills in heathy and mountainous dis- 

 tricts, which are covered with a natural growth of birch, 

 alder, and willow, and intersected by morasses clothed with 

 long and coarse herbage, as well as the deep and wooded 

 glens so frequently occurring in extensive wastes, are the 

 situations best suited to the habits of these birds, and most 

 1'avourable to their increase. During the months of autumn 

 and winter the males associate, and live in Hocks, but sepa- 

 rate in March or April; and, being polygamous, each indi- 

 vidual chooses some particular station, from whence he drives 

 all intruders, and for the possession of which, when they are 

 numerous, desperate contests often take place. At this 

 station he continues every morning during the pairing sea- 

 son (beginning at day-break) to repeat his call of invitation 

 to the other sex, displaying a variety of attitudes, not unlike 

 those of a turkey-cock, accompanied by a crowing note, and 

 one similar to the noise made by the whettine of a scythe. 

 At this season bis plumage exhibits the richest glosses, and 

 the red skin of his eyebrows assumes a superior intensity of 

 colour. With the cause that urged their temporary separa- 

 tion their animosity ceases, and the male birds again asso- 

 ciate, and live harmoniously together. The female deposits 

 her eggs in May ; they are from six to ten * in number, of a 

 yellowish-grey colour, blotched with reddish-brown. The 

 nest is of most artless construction, being composed of a 

 few dried stems of grass placed on the ground, under the 

 shelter of a tall tuft or low bush, and generally in marshy 

 spots where long and coarse grasses abound. The young of 

 both sexes at first resemble each other, and their plumage 

 is that of the hen, with whom they continue till the autumnal 

 moult takes place ; at this timo the males acquire {he garb 

 of the adult bird, and, quitting their female parent, join the 

 societies of their own sex. The food of tho black grouse, 

 during the summer, chiefly consists of the seeds of some 

 species of Juncut, the tender shoots of heath, and insects. 

 In autumn, tho crowberry, or crawcrook (Einjielrum ni- 

 ffrum), the cranberry (Kacrintum oxycocciis], the whortle- 

 berry (Vaccinium vitit Iiltca), and the trailing arbutus 

 (Arbutus uva ursi), afford it a plentiful subsistence. In 

 winter, and during severe mid snowy weather, it cats the 

 tops and buds of the birch and alder, as well as the embryo 

 shoots of the fir tribe, which it is well enabled to obtain, as 

 it is capable of perching upon trees without difficulty. At 

 this season of the year, in situations where arable land is 

 interspersed with the wild tracts it inhabits, descending into 

 the stubble ground*, it feeds on grain.' 



Colonel Hawker (Inttructions to Young Sportsmen) 

 mentions a very good day's black-game shooting on the 

 manors of Hamprcaton and Uddens near Wiraborne, on the 

 25th of August, 18:25, when, according to his account, Mr. 

 John Ponton of Uddens House and himself saw eleven 

 brace of poults, and killed eight brace, but not one old cock 

 did they see all day. Colonel Hawker's excellent hints for 

 getting at these and other birds, founded, as all such hints 

 of his are, upon a practical knowledge of the habits of the 

 objects of his pursuit, show the advantage to be derived by 



According to Temmiock, the egf i KHHnm amount to Un, and occunlius 

 lu Numun, lu riilm. 



the sportsman from an acquaintance with natural history 

 especially that part of U which i, rumcnant with the habits 

 of annuals. 



i [Lyrurus tetrix, fern. ] 



Linnoous says that the young are brought up upon gnats. 

 Swainson, in his system, places the bird as the first sub- 

 genus (Lyrurus) of his aberrant group of Tetraonidce. 



That the black-cock was known to the antients there is 

 little doubt. Aristotle, in the first chapter of his sixth book, 

 where he is speaking of the nidiflcation of birds, says, that 

 ' those which are not strong of flight, such as putriogai and 

 quails, do not lay in nests (properly so called) but on tho 

 ground, merely collecting together materials (rXijv) : so also 

 do the larks (copuftc) and the tetrix.' At the end of tho 

 chapter he says, ' But the tetrix, which the Athenians call 

 ourax, neither makes its nest upon the bare ground nor yet 

 upon trees, but upon low plants (iiri roTc x a /' a< 'A l "C 0'' T 

 answering to Temminck's description ' Niche dans les 

 bruyeres ou dans les buissons;' to Selby's ' Under tho 

 shelter of a tall tuft or low bush, generally where long and 

 coarse grasses abound ;' and to Graves's ' On any <lr> 

 or heath, without any appearance of a nest, but most g 

 rally in the midst of a high tuft of heath.' This tetrix, th.-n, 

 which the Athenians called ourax, was not improbably "iir 

 black-cock. 



Pliny's description (cap. xxii. lib. x.) ' Dccet tctraonas 

 suus nitor absolutaque nigritia, in supcrciliis cocci rubor' 

 looks very like our bird, though the passage HIM in- in his 

 chapter on geese, and so it struck Bclon. The tctraoncs 

 mentioned in company with the peacocks, guinea-fowls, and 

 pheasants, in chap. xii. of Suetonius (in Calig.), were pro- 

 bably the same. 



The flesh of tho black grouse is much esteemed. The 

 different colour of the flesh of the pectoral muscles mu*t 

 have struck everyone. The internal lajcr, which is re- 

 markably white, is esteemed the most dclicnii- portion. 

 Bclon goes so far as to say that the three pectoral nu 

 have three different flavours : the first that of lieef, the next 

 that of partridge, and tho third that of pheasant. 



Male. Weight of a fine specimen about four pounds ; 

 bill dusky black; irides hazel; head, neck, breast, hack, 

 and rump, glossy black, shot with steel-blue and purple; 

 eye-brows naked, granulated, and of a bright vermilion n <1 ; 

 belly, wing-coverts, nnd tail, pitch black; secondaries tip|x>d 

 with pure white, and forming with the neighbouring coverts 

 a band across each wing; under tail-coverts pure white; 

 legs furnished with hair-like feathers of a dark-brown, 



* Tun hen u rcfKKntol too largo ill proportion lu the cock. 



