RESTORATION OF BLACK GROUSE. 



of the season but I have not been able to learn 

 that their numbers are augmented, as they might 

 be, by either of the two modes usually adopted 

 for the increase of pheasants viz., frequent im- 

 portations of fresh birds from a distance, or 

 having the eggs hatched and reared under do- 

 mestic hens, and the poults subsequently turned 

 down. It may be objected that the first of these 

 modes is attended with considerable expense, and 

 that the latter requires too much trouble, care, 

 and attention, to ensure its general adoption : but 

 it has often occurred to me that another, and very 

 different, plan might be tried with advantage, and 

 would be the more likely to prove successful be- 

 cause it would require but little interference on 

 the part of man, and almost the entire proceeding 

 might be safely left to the guidance of Nature 

 herself. 



The idea first struck me when conversing some 

 years ago with a Scotch landed proprietor, who 

 told me that he had introduced the pheasant 

 among his black grouse by placing the eggs which 

 had been previously laid in an aviary in the nests 

 of grey hens.* One or two only were put into 

 each nest, in which about half the usual comple- 



* The reader will have observed that the same system has 

 since been successfully adopted at Taymouth with the caper- 



