CHAPTER IV, 



BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 



THEEE is no bird of game so easily come at, early in 

 the season (August), as the black grouse, familiarly 

 known as the black cock ; nor one so difficult of 

 approach when the winter has set in. Black game 

 do not pair like the red grouse, so shooting the 

 hen and her young ones, before experience makes the 

 latter sage, is as easy as circumventing a flock of 

 turkeys. But getting a "crack" at an old cock, at 

 any period of the year, is another affair altogether. 

 He is found generally alone, sometimes with half a 

 score of other "old cocks," all on the qui vive. 

 Unlike the practice in reference to hen pheasants, as 

 we shall see presently, it is fashionable to destroy the 

 matrons of the black grouse family, for it is a pug. 

 nacious race. They cannot live with their red 

 brethren upon decent terms, any more than white 

 men can with their brothers of similar hue. The 

 difference, however, is, that while the bipes inplumis 

 rubicundus, or red man of the traveller, goes to the 

 wall, the feathered animal of two legs and plumage 



