GAME BIRDS. Ill 



is devoutly to be wished, as the introduction of fresh blood is most 

 essential to the preservation of animals, and nothing has needed it 

 more than the subjects of which I am now treating the young, 

 in some seasons, being so dreadfully ravaged by the tape-worm, 

 as to threaten the destruction of all those in the district in which 

 it occurs. It would, therefore, be much to be regretted, if un- 

 limited persecution, or want of preservation, should, in after 

 years, extirpate this bird, said to be so exclusively national. It 

 is well known, that on all the more southern moors, not a tenth 

 of the former number of birds at present exist, and it is only in 

 the more remote districts, where access and accommodation for 

 sportsmen are in some degree wanting, that they are to be seen in 

 anything like their former numbers. In former days, the Earl of 

 Strathmore's gamekeeper, for a considerable bet, undertook to 

 shoot forty brace of game, upon his lordship's moors in Yorkshire. 

 By two o'clock he had killed forty-three brace. 



The male of this bird weighs about twenty ounces ; length, 

 sixteen inches; bill black; irides hazel. Above the eye is a 

 scarlet- fringed membrane, bare of feathers ; the nostrils are 

 covered with black and ferruginous feathers ; the head and neck 

 pale tawny, spotted black ; breast and belly dull purplish brown, 

 crossed with numerous, narrow, dusky lines ; quills dusky. The 

 tail consists of sixteen feathers ; the four middle ones are barred 

 with tawny red ; the rest black ; legs covered with soft, whitish 

 feathers, down the claws, which are of a light, horn colour, broad 

 and concave underneath. 



The female weighs about sixteen ounces ; the colour not so dark 

 as on the male. 



They prefer the extensive, uncultivated wastes, covered with 

 heath, particularly the most mountainous situations. The moun- 

 tains of Wales, are now the most southern parts, these birds are 

 found in. They are not uncommon in Yorkshire, and from thence 

 northward, upon the moorlands, but nowhere so plentiful as in 

 the Highlands of Scotland, where the moors are unbounded. 



The hen lays from eight to fourteen eggs, much like those of the 

 black game, but smaller. The young keep with the parent bird 

 till towards winter, and are called a pack or brood. In November 

 they flock together in great numbers, sometimes thirty or forty, 

 where they are plentiful, at which time they are extremely shy, 

 and difficult to be shot. 



In severe winters, moorgame comes lower down to the moun- 

 tains in Scotland, and flock together in prodigious numbers : ac- 

 cording to Thornton, three or four thousand assembled in one 



