160 THE BLACK GEOUSE. 



" as Hare, Partridge, Black-Cock, Dotterel, and Wood-Cock, 

 are plentiful." The " Black-Cock " mentioned in Mr. Knight's 

 list then frequented Lauiberton Moor, and continued to do 

 so, as I have been informed by the proprietor of Mordington 

 Estate, Major Campbell-Eenton, for many years after the 

 above date; they became extinct about 1870, when a Grey 

 Hen was shot near Mordington House. There were none 

 seen for some years afterwards in the neighbourhood, until 

 the winter of 1882, when a Black-Cock and three Grey 

 Hens appeared ; but since then they have regularly bred 

 every year on the moor in small numbers. 1 



If a line be drawn on a map of Berwickshire from 

 Coldingham Village to Earlston, it will divide the county 

 into two halves of nearly equal size. The northern half 

 is the district in which the Black Grouse is at present 

 found in greater or less numbers, and includes the follow- 

 ing parishes : Abbey St. Bathans, Buncle, Channelkirk, 

 Cockburnspath, Coldingham, Cranshaws, Duns, Earlston, 

 Gordon, Greenlaw, 2 Langton, Polwarth, Legerwood, West- 

 ruther, Lauder, and Longformacus. I have observed that 

 this species is numerous in the neighbourhood of Cattle- 

 shiel and Bedshiel, as many as eleven brace having been 

 killed at the latter place in a day's shooting in August 

 about the year 1882 by the late Mr. Hume-Purves of 

 Purves Hall. 



The best bags of Black-game in the county are gener- 

 ally made on Spottiswoode Estate, concerning which the 

 following notes have been kindly supplied to me by Mr. 

 John Young, gamekeeper to Lady John Scott Spottiswoode 



1 The gamekeeper at Mordington informed me on 9th December 1887 that there 

 were then fifteen Black Grouse on Lamberton Moor. 



2 Mr. W. Smith, head gamekeeper, Haddo House, Aberdeenshire, informed me 

 on the 4th December 1891 that he once found as many as seven nests of this bird 

 in a day while searching for Pheasants' eggs in Foulshotlaw Wood, Berwickshire, 

 in the end of April 1878, the nests being placed amongst dead Scotch fir branches. 



