230 BLACK-GAME 



in December 1882 was caused by the centre of the 

 cyclone being arrested for a while over the Isle of Mull, 

 just in the position which brought the north-west blow, 

 always the heaviest, prevailing in its posterior segment, 

 to bear on the south-west coast of Scotland. 



LXXXVII 



Some complaints have been heard lately about the 

 serious decrease in the numbers of black-game in Scot- 

 land, and no doubt there is good reason for 

 Black-Game 



the same; for black -game, being poly- 

 gamous, like their near relative the pheasant, will not 

 endure the same severe treatment which pairing game- 

 birds survive. The mother-bird's moral sense seems to 

 have deteriorated owing to the laxity of her connubial 

 relations, for both hen-pheasants and grey-hens are 

 notoriously bad nurses. Flush the grey-hen in July, 

 and she will rise on her strong pinions and steam away 

 over hill and glen, apparently without a thought of the 

 helpless brood crouching in the heather. Did anybody 

 ever see either hen-pheasant or grey-hen resort to that 

 fond and common device of monogamous mother-birds 

 shamming cripples to divert attention from their 

 young? I never did, and I question whether poly- 

 gamous birds ever do so. 



But in one respect the grey-hen differs very remark- 

 ably from the hen-pheasant. The cock-pheasant struts 

 about in the nesting season followed by his dingy docile 

 wives, and suffers no rival to approach his harem 

 without doing battle. But blackcock are philosophic 



