The Black Grouse Natural History. 135 



learning its habits, and always found the farther off we went 

 the more plentiful the black game. 



This game bird is an early riser, always running the 

 sun very close. For some weeks we made regular visits at 

 short intervals of a day or so, sometimes before sunrise, to a 

 moor after golden plover, and always found the black game 

 in the bogs feeding, although their roosting place was known 

 to us to be some distance off. During the day they move 

 outwards, if possible, from the signs of human existence, 

 or retire to the high and exposed parts of the estate, except, 

 of course, in winter, when ofttimes the whole day is taken 

 up in the search for food. This consists for the most part 

 of the leaves, flowers, shoots, and seeds of many kinds of 

 sedge, chickweed, and ranunculi, leaves of some few shrubs 

 and bush growth, and the shoots and berries of the whortle- 

 berry, cranberry, cowberry, and bearberry, and the tender 

 shoots of heather ; besides these the shoots and soft 

 needles of firs, leaves of ferns, and other like things. 

 The bird, therefore, is easily provided for. During winter 

 the range of food is considerably restricted, and often the 

 supply is so difficult to obtain that the birds have recourse 

 to the cultivated fields of the farmer, when hunger makes 

 them often very tame. Black grouse should always be pro- 

 vided with corn, &c., during very hard weather. 



