BLACK GKOT7SE. 191 



located; one, a grey hen, is recorded by J. B. Ellman, Esq., 

 in the "Zoologist," page 3330, as having been caught near 

 Lewes, Sussex, on the 30fch. of October, 1851: the cock bird 

 was seen at the same time. One, a female, was shot near 

 Hampton Court, Herefordshire, the seat of J. Arkwright, Esq., 

 in March, 1850; another, also a female, was found dead at 

 Elvedon, in Suffolk, on the 12th. of October, 1844; a male 

 had been seen in the adjoining parish the first week in Sep- 

 tember. One was captured on Urchfont Down, near Devizes, 

 Wiltshire, in April, 1851, by a gamekeeper of Lord Broughton 

 De Giffbrd; one shot near Forest Hill, Oxfordshire, in October, 

 1836. They breed regularly near Axmouth, Devonshire; and 

 also on Exmoor, Dartmoor, and Sedgemoor. 



These birds have now become quite localized in various 

 parts of the neighbourhood of Windermere, Westmorland, 

 having made their first appearance in that district in 1845. 

 They are found in Surrey, in St. Leonard's Forest, near 

 Horsham, Tilford, and Hindhead, Farnham, Bagshot, Guildford, 

 and Dorking, celebrated for another breed of fowl, and in 

 which neighbourhood, at Hurtford, in the year 1815, H. M. 

 Thornton, Esq., of Chobham, also recently so famous for the 

 military camp there, turned out five birds: the race had 

 before existed there, but had been extinct about fifty years. 

 They are found also in Shropshire, near Corwen, and in other 

 parts, and in Staffordshire, and, it is said, in Worcestershire 

 and Lancashire, and near Finchamstead, in Berkshire. 



In Scotland it is abundant in Sutherlandshire, Dumfries- 

 shire, and Galloway, and in many other parts, and some of 

 its Islands Mull, Skye, and others, and Selby says, in some 

 of the Hebrides. It is also met with in some parts of 

 Wales, where it is strictly preserved. 



Its natural resorts are the lower parts of hills and valleys 

 where there is a natural growth of birch, alder, and willow 

 trees, and a wild vegetation prevails of fern and heather, 

 woods and herbage affording it a shelter, and also water, near 

 which it is only to be found, whether the morass or the 

 mountain stream. 



It is a singular circumstance in the natural history of this 

 bird, as pointed out to me by Mr. D. M. Falconer, of Loan 

 Head, Edinburgh, that the female does not begin to breed 

 until three years. This fact he seems, by the account he 

 has sent to me, to have established. If alarmed, they fly 

 off to a place of security, or drop and remain motionless till 



