BLACK GAME 



THE season for these birds opens in the North on 2Oth 

 August, and in the South on 1st September. They have 

 been lately exterminated in the New Forest and in Norfolk, and 

 have long since disappeared in most of the counties south-east 

 of Staffordshire. In Salop and Wales there are a few of them, 

 as there are also in Devonshire and Somersetshire and in all the 

 northern counties. They are and always have been absent 

 from Ireland, but are found throughout the Highlands and the 

 border counties, and are far more numerous in Dumfriesshire 

 and Selkirkshire than elsewhere. Probably the species is de- 

 creasing in numbers everywhere, except in isolated patches of 

 country where they are especially preserved. They are found 

 throughout North Europe and North Asia, but in the Caucasus 

 there is a second and only other species, which is smaller, and 

 in which the cocks are blacker, than in our species. A peculiarity 

 of black game is that the cocks do not acquire the lyre tails until 

 the third year, although the hens are said to be fertile in the 

 second year. The white under the tail of the black cocks is 

 flecked with black until the bird grows old, when the black 

 gradually disappears. It is not at all uncommon to see beautiful 

 word painting detailing the glories of the lyre tail, amongst other 

 beauties, on 2oth August, but this is not painting from nature, 

 for neither old nor young birds have the lyre tail at that time. 

 The old birds are then in full moult, and although they can fly 

 as well as ever, they lie to dogs then as at no other time of the 

 year, except in July and the earlier days of August. No one 

 would wish these old stagers to be shot then, where they are 

 numerous enough to afford driving later in the season. But 



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