8 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



bushes, beneath which they are fond of nesting. 

 About the stumps of the early-flowering willows, 

 or the leafy alder roots, they scratch a faint de- 

 pression in the ground, but make only the slightest 

 of nests. Within a fortnight nine or ten eggs are laid, 

 and incubation begins. The nests are by no means 

 always under cover, for I have frequently found 

 them under heather and the various berry-bearing 

 bushes, quite in the open. Occasionally the hens 

 retire to the deeper depths of the forest to nest, 

 but these cases are exceptional. As already in- 

 dicated, the favourite spots are among the low scrub 

 on the confines of the forest, where light and life are 

 abundant. 



In its relation to the forest the blackcock 

 strikes a mean between the red-grouse and the 

 capercailzie. It is partially arboreal in its haunts 

 and habits, more so than the red-grouse, less so than 

 the capercailzie. Black-game love the wide tracts 

 of tussocky grass, with abundant rushes and sedge 

 upon them the former always testifying to the 

 presence of water. Here they find food in the brown 

 seeds of the coarse herbage, and at one period of late 

 summer the birds would seem almost exclusively 

 to live upon the fruit of the sweet rush. Whilst this 

 lasts it is preferred to the cranberries and black- 

 berries growing about; but all are neglected for the 

 barley patches of the hill farms, when it happens that 



