36 Ml', ^y. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



grouse. But when they get strong and able to do for themselves 

 they get into packs, often to the number of forty or fifty, and fly 

 over the whole country and take both to the woods and corn-fields 

 — when at Douglas last I was talking to Lord Douglas's keeper 

 about what he thought the young birds fed on. He said that early 

 in the season he had caught some young birds, intending to tame 

 them and learn them to feed, so that I might be better able to get 

 them safe over, but they all died in a day or two. He cut open 

 some of their crops to see what they fed on, and could observe 

 nothing but the seed of the sprat or rush. Now, from the number 

 of black cattle that are kept on the mountains in the north of Ire- 

 land, there is scarcely any sprat or rushes allowed to grow that 

 would be of any use either for cover or food. I have seldom seen 

 them sit when cattle go near them, and a crow flying over will make 

 a score of them rise and fly away in the latter end of the season, 

 when they are strong on the wing. With respect to the haunts and 

 breeding-ground of young black game, I speak only from my own 

 observations. I am not aware that they haunt the same kind of 

 ground in other parts of the country, I merely wish to direct 

 your attention to it. I know they are plenty in the island of Arran, 

 but do not know what sort of ground they frequent there. As I 

 mentioned before, none of the hens have been seen since the begin- 

 ning of the breeding time : whether they began to hatch and were 

 killed by some vermin, or wandered away in search of a more suit- 

 able place for their purpose, is a question I cannot answer. Lord 

 Courtown's keeper was at Douglas Castle shortly after I was, in 

 November 1839, and got away six brace to his lordship's estates 

 somewhere south of Dublin, but I have not heard how they suc- 

 ceeded." 



How different from this is the case at Ballantrae in Ayrshire, just 

 opposite to Glenarm ! When sporting there in 1839, I made the 

 following note on the 20th of August, after returning from the first 

 day's black game shooting. 



" Within twenty years a black grouse was an extraordinary sight 

 in the neighbourhood of Ballantrae in Ayrshire, and still later, not 

 more than one or two individuals would be met with during a sea- 

 son's shooting. When first there, in the autumn of 1828, I saw 

 numbers of these birds, chiefly about the corn-fields adjacent to the 

 mountains, since which time they have been gradually increasing, 

 and of late years have become abundant. This is doubtless attri- 

 butable to the great increase of cultivation, or the growth of corn in 

 the vicinity of the moors, for with its augmentation that of the black 

 game has proportionally kept pace — M-ithin the period alluded to 

 a vast quantity of mountain-land has been brought under cultivation 

 in this district. 



" In grouse ground we met with two or three small packs of black 

 game today, but one pack was quite below the moor, and on look- 

 ing to the crop of a young cock killed there, I found it filled with 

 the flowers of all the plants which grew around — amongst them 

 were those of Euphrasia, Ra/mncuU, Cerastia, Carices, but in quan- 



