342 TETRAONID.E. 



alone devolves the care and provision of the brood. In 

 their first plumage the young birds of both sexes resemble 

 the female, but the young males by the month of August, 

 being then more than half grown, begin to show some 

 of the black feathers which distinguish the sex, and which 

 first appear in spots and patches about the sides and 

 breast. The change to the complete dark plumage goes on 

 in some instances so slowly, that I lately saw a young male 

 of the season of 1839, which retained a few brown feathers 

 as late as the middle of the month of February 1 840. 



In the summer these birds live upon seeds, the tender 

 shoots of heath, leaves, and some insects. In autumn they 

 feed on berries of various sorts, occasionally visiting corn- 

 fields and stubbles ; and in winter I have found their crops 

 distended with the tips of the most recent shoots of pines 

 and firs. 



The supply of these birds to the London poulterers is 

 very large and continuous, from the end of August till the 

 following month of April ; during the first four months 

 from Scotland, and afterwards from Norway and Sweden. 

 Grouse shooting commences in Norway on the first day of 

 August; and so numerous are these birds in some parts 

 of Sweden, where they are strictly preserved, where the 

 hens are never shot at, and no spring shooting allowed, that 

 one hundred Black Cocks have not unfrequently been killed 

 in one day. 



In the southern parts of England, Black Grouse are found 

 in Sussex on Ashdown Forest ; in Surrey on St. Leonard's 

 Forest, near Horsham, and from Pudmores along the brows 

 of the heath-hills towards Tilford, and again from Tilford 

 up to the Devil's Punch-bowl on Hindhead. In 1815, H. 

 M. Thornton, Esq., of Chobham, brought two Black Cocks 

 and three Grey Hens from Holland. These birds were 



