BLACK GROUS. 41 



more easily in soft and miry places, and also to retain their 

 perch better on trees than the mountain birds. 



Their general habits also more nearly resemble those of 

 common domestic poultry. The males are polygamous, each 

 of them procuring, often by desperate combats, in the early 

 part of the season, a number of females, to whom they are 

 not so attentive, in the time of incubation, as the formerly 

 noticed species. The male is also larger as compared with 

 the female, and has the plumage finer in proportion, and the 

 external feathers of the tail more developed ; and though, as 

 we descend the mountains, the birds become more shy of the 

 visits of man, they come more to his cultivated grounds and 

 his habitation. The only British species now is 



BLACK GEOUS (Tetrao tetrix). 



Black grous is a much larger bird than the former species, 

 though far inferior in size to the wood grous. It is nearly 

 two feet long, and three feet in the expanse of the wings ; 

 and the weight, when the bird is in good condition, is from 

 three to four pounds : these are the proportions of the male 

 bird, the female being considerably smaller. As the tail is 

 more produced, the length is greater in proportion than in 

 the red grous ; but the forms of the birds have (the tails 

 excepted) a considerable resemblance to each other, and the 

 weights bear the same proportion to the extent of the wings. 



The bill is black, and so are the upper parts of the body 

 generally ; but they are finely varied with blue, purple, and 

 deep bronze-green reflections. The blue is brightest on the 

 nape of the neck, terminates at the scapulars, which are 

 black with purple, and appears again on the rump, passing 

 into purple, black, and a shade of green on the upper tail- 

 coverts and tail feathers. The lower part is pitch-black 

 without reflections, with the exception of the under tail- 

 coverts, which are pure white. A spot on the wrist-joint of 



