The Land of the Hills and the Glens 



from fighting to feeding, so that "sparring" was broken off, 

 and the birds commenced to feed quietly side by side with 

 their erstwhile antagonists. 



Another much frequented battlefield of the blackcock is 

 on the south shore of the Sound of Mull. Here, too, the 

 spot chosen is on the outskirts of a birch wood, on a strip 

 of comparatively bare ground. The main road runs only a 

 few yards from this ground, and often, very early of a 

 morning, I have disturbed the birds at their contests. More 

 than once I have passed within a few yards of the fighting 

 birds in a motor-car without even causing them to lift their 

 heads. Having got past them I have stopped to watch their 

 battles, with their soft, bubbling notes in my ears, and with 

 the keen wind from off the Sound sighing through the 

 birches and rustling the withered fronds of the bracken. 



Though it is undoubtedly the mating impulse that 

 prompts the birds to fight, it is rarely that the greyhens 

 in any numbers frequent the battlefield. One often sees an 

 odd bird there, or even two or three, but personally I do 

 not think I have ever seen so many as even half a dozen 

 watching the fighting of perhaps twenty cocks. 



The blackcock is polygamous, , but he takes no interest 

 whatever in the eggs or broods of his several wives. I 

 think there are, all the same, considerably more blackcocks 

 than greyhens in existence, so that the former must 

 frequently be perforce content with a single mate, if indeed, 

 they are always able to procure even one. 



124 



