BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 55 



never been disturbed, they will often suffer them- 

 selves to be mouthed by pointers without rising. 

 We have spoken of their summer food, as the berries 

 of Alpine plants and the seeds of rank grasses. In 

 winter, they eat the young fir- shoots, the catkins of 

 the hazel and the birch, and fern leaves, which so 

 frequently disagreeably taint their flesh. Where, 

 however, the bird frequents the low grounds, they 

 resort to the rape and turnip-fields, and feed during 

 frosty weather most gratefully upon the leaves. They 

 also resort to the stubble, and glean from it, by 

 hundreds, with great industry, a plentiful repast. 

 They are sometimes approached while flocking for 

 this purpose, by means of the fences, and shot at, 

 although at this season they are most shy and wary. 



This bird has been long extinct in Ireland, al- 

 though Smith, in his " History of Cork," mentions 

 it as met with in that locality (1749). It is 

 found in most European countries : France, Ger- 

 many, and even in Italy ; in Russia, Siberia, Scan- 

 dinavia, Norway, Lapland. It is the Tetrao tetrix 

 of authors ; black grouse or cock, grey hen, of British 

 authors : Lyrurus tetrix of Swainson, so named from 

 the form of its tail. 



As a conclusion to these notices of the grouse 

 family, the following extract from the letter of an 

 American sportsman will not be out of place : 



" There is not one wild bird or beast in America, 

 unless it be a few ducks, precisely similar to its 

 European congeners. The woodcock is a distinct 



