GAME BIRDS. 109 



feeling for love and fighting, and re -assemble in small parties, and 

 seek the shelter of the brush and fern, to complete a new moult. 



The sexes continue separate until winter, when the old males 

 join with the young brood. Upon the females devolve the whole 

 duties of rearing and protecting the young. 



During the summer, the general food is the seeds of the various 

 grasses, and the berries of the different Alpine plants, such as 

 the cran and crowberries, blaeberries, &c. ; and in winter, the 

 tender shoots of the fir, catkins of birch and hazel, afford them 

 support in the milder districts, and often give their peculiar 

 flavour to the flesh ; but in all the lower districts, where, indeed, 

 this bird is most abundant, the gleaning of the stubble, yields a 

 plentiful meal. Fields of turnips or rape are also favourite feed- 

 ing-places, and the leaves yield them a more convenient supply of 

 food, during hard frost, than they could elsewhere provide. In 

 some places flocks of hundreds assemble at feeding time ; for of 

 late years, " the bonny black cock" has increased in Scotland to 

 an immense extent, and from the life of the hens, being, in a cer- 

 tain degree, protected, a sufficient breeding stock is always kept 

 up. At the season of their thus assembling in flocks, they are 

 extremely shy and wary. 



It is a matter of regret and surprise, that the lovers of field 

 sports do not re-establish the beautiful black cock in this country; 

 nothing could be easier : they find their food everywhere on the 

 mountain, in the valley, and in the cornfield, and have been bred 

 in a domestic state. Any number could be had from the Scottish 

 moors. 



The time for shooting heath fowl (black game) begins on the 

 20th August, and ends on the 10th December. The mere posses- 

 sion of these birds at any other period of the year (except such as 

 may be kept tame) subjects the party (13 Geo. III., c. 55) to a 

 penalty of not more than 20 nor less than 10 for the first offence, 

 and for every subsequent offence, to not more than 30 nor less 

 than 20, half to go to the informer, and the other half to the 

 poor of the parish ; and in case where neither penalty nor distress 

 can be had, to imprisonment, of not less than three, or more than 

 six months. In New Forest the season for heath fowl does not 

 commence till the 1st September. 



