GROUSE AND BLACK-GAME SHOOTING. 91 



Each walked off in dudgeon, thinking the other was laughing 

 at him. A still more unlucky confounding of pickles and 

 preserves was made by one of the foreign deputation to the 

 Seceding Assembly, who prayed that " Dr Chalmers might 

 long be pickled for the Free Church." A keen opponent of 

 that great man's ecclesiastical polity, who had often found his 

 powerful appeals not very easy to stomach, musingly mut- 

 tured, " Hech me ! but a piece pickled Chammers wad be ill 

 to disgeest." 



BLACK-GAME. 



Black-game do not pair like grouse ; and shooting the hen 

 and young birds at the beginning of the season is a simple 

 business. 1 You have only to make yourself master of the 

 places they frequent. They may always be found near a 

 short thick rush, easily seen on the moor, the brown seeds of 

 which form the principal food of the young packs. When 

 your dogs point near these rushes, and especially if they 

 " road," you may be almost sure of black-game. The old hen 

 generally rises first, the young pack lying like stones : no 

 birds are more easily shot. 



The old cocks, even in August, are never very tame : for 

 although, where the heather or rushes are long and rank, they 



1 Many gentlemen are now beginning to shoot -the hens, observing the great 

 increase of black-game and decrease of grouse in some districts. This may in part 

 be attributed to the advance of cultivation ; but I cannot help thinking the 

 black-game have a good share in driving off the grouse as I know of one instance 

 where the former were killed off, and the latter again returned to their old 

 haunts. I believe it is also more than suspected that the capercailzie, wherever 

 they are introduced, have a great inclination to dispossess both. It is a curious 

 fact that the young capercailzie thrive better under the foster-care of the grey- 

 hen than if left to their natural protectress. When a capercailzie's eggs are dis- 

 covered, they are divided among several grey-hens, whose nests the keepers 

 search out for this purpose. The grey-hens, however, will not sit upon them 

 unless some of their own eggs are also left. But when the young are hatched, 

 they pay equal regard to both ; and it is not until the capercailzie are fully 

 grown that they drive away their step-mothers, who dread them as much as 

 hawks. 



