PHEASANT AND BLACK GROUSE. 225 



ful : and yet how great are the natural facilities 

 for the establishment of black game in that coun- 

 try ! Vast tracts of heather-clad, boggy moun- 

 tains require nothing but plantations of birch, 

 hazel, willows or alder among their lower glens, 

 to render them everything that could be desired 

 in a natural point of view, yet at this moment not 

 an individual of the species, I believe, exists in a 

 wild state throughout the entire island. 



There have been many and more successful 

 attempts there of late years to encourage the 

 pheasant, as a park or shrubbery offers a field 

 sufficiently large for the experiment on a small 

 scale, whereas with black game a tract of moun- 

 tain, bog, or moor in combination with wood, is 

 necessary. Yet the former is, strictly speaking, 

 an exotic, and a wet climate is peculiarly unsuited 

 to him. The latter on the contrary requires a 

 swampy soil, and a sufficient extent of quick 

 growing cover might be easily raised for him 

 among the mountain valleys, while large woods or 

 forests of timber trees are more necessary for the 

 permanent establishment of the pheasant. Again, 

 the black grouse would soon possess that invalu- 

 able charm of which the pheasant could never 

 boast, that of being strictly fera naturd in those 

 wild and thinly inhabited regions a meet com- 

 panion for the moor fowl and the woodcock and 



L 5 



