170 THE COMMON BLACK GROUSE. 



The favourite abode of the black grouse is an 

 alpine sheep country, where there is comparatively 

 little heath, moist flats or meadows, with a rank 

 and luxuriant herbage, and where the glades or passes 

 among the hills are clothed with natural brush of 

 birch, hazel, willow, and alder, and have a tangled 

 bottom of deep fern. These afford both an abund- 

 ant supply of food, and shelter from the cold at night, 

 and from the rays of the mid-summer's sun. 



Like the greater proportion of the true grouse, the 

 black game is polygamous; and during the months of 

 January, February, and March, when his adult breed- 

 ing plumage of glossy steel-blue is put on, he is a noble- 

 looking and splendid bird. In the warmer sunny days 

 at the conclusion of winter and commencement of 

 spring, the males after feeding may be seen arrang- 

 ed, on some turf fence, rail, or sheep-fold, pluming 

 their wings, expanding their tails, and practising, as it 

 were, their murmuring love- call. If the weather now 

 continues warm, the flocks soon separate, and the 

 males select some conspicuous spot, from whence 

 they endeavour to drive all rivals, and commence to 

 display their arts to allure the female. The places 

 selected at such seasons are generally elevations ; 

 the turf enclosure of a former sheep-fold which has 

 been disused, and is now grown over, or some of 

 those beautiful spots of fresh and grassy pasture, 

 which are every where to be seen, and are well known 

 to the inhabitants of a pastoral district. Here, after 

 perhaps many battles have been fought and rivals van- 



