438 SHOOTING. 



which they inhabit, though we know not well the 

 cause of the colour in either case. The ptarmigan 

 is mossy rock in summer, hoar frost in autumn, 

 and snow in winter. Grouse are brown heather, 

 black-game are peat-bank and shingle, and partridges 

 are clods and withered stalks all the year round. " 

 And to continue the similitude, woodcocks are dead 

 leaves, the streaked snipe is the marsh-reed, the 

 pheasant is red fern, and the capercailzie is the 

 black branch of the pine. 



We find the earliest birds of each kind in the 

 warmest valleys and on the richest land, the par- 

 tridge and blackcock of the South of England 

 arrive at full growth before those of the North. 

 Looking at the various birds of the game species 

 collectively, the order is reversed, the higher, the 

 colder the location to which they belong, the sooner 

 does each separate kind arrive at maturity. The 

 ptarmigan is ready for the table before the time 

 at which it may be legally shot, the twelfth of 

 August. Descending the hill, we find the red 

 grouse not three parts grown at that period. A 

 little lower, and the scarcely fledged blackcock rises 

 almost helpless, on the twentieth of August. Lower 

 still, on the fertile plain, the young partridge does 

 not assume his grey mantle and purple crescent 

 until long after the first of September. And in 

 the warm woods the pheasant does not don his 

 panoply of gold until the fall of the leaf. 



Few are the sportsmen that climb the granite 

 clifls amongst which ptarmigan are found, or wade 

 the winter snows in which those birds delight to 



