6 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



III 



THE BIRD OF THE BRAES 



IT is March in the pine- wood. Let us look out the 

 noble blackcock in its haunts. With the coming of 

 day we are abroad on the moorlands. The snow 

 lines of the fences are vanishing before the sun. The 

 belling of a red-deer comes from the neighbouring 

 corrie. The mists are being dispersed from the 

 grey lichen patches loved by the ptarmigan, and the 

 dawn is driven beyond the western hills. Unlike 

 the red-grouse, which are already paired, the black- 

 cock is polygamous; and here, among the scrub of 

 oak and birch and hazel, we may watch his curious 

 proceedings. He greatly prefers the stunted wet 

 woods to the heather, and here probably finds food 

 more abundant. Half a dozen grey hens are quietly 

 feeding upon the seeds of various grasses and rushes, 

 picking occasionally from the shoots of the willows 

 and alders which surround them. Just as the 

 warmth of the sun begins to be felt, the curious crow- 

 ing or calling of the blackcocks is heard from the 

 braes. At this the hens retire further into the bushes, 

 and presently a handsome male bird alights where 

 for yards around the herbage is trodden completely 

 down. Then another, and another the second 

 and third birds, from the plumage, older than 



