BLACK GROUSE. 34-3 



turned out on the Hurtwood, a tract of heath between 

 Guildford and Dorking. At that time this species of 

 game had been extinct in that part for fifty years; but 

 these foreign birds, being well preserved, have replenished 

 the district. They bred the following spring after their 

 introduction, and the first nest observed was within a 

 hundred yards of the spot where they were first turned 

 out. Some of the descendants of these birds have strayed 

 to the heathy districts between Farnham and Bagshot, and 

 have extended themselves as far as Finchampstead in Berk- 

 shire. Black Grouse occur again in Hampshire on the 

 New Forest, and from thence along to the westward in 

 Dorsetshire ; they are found on Dartmoor and Exmoor in 

 Devonshire, and are abundant on the property of Lord 

 Caernarvon near Dulvarton, on the north-eastern border 

 of Devonshire, and the heaths of Somersetshire, from whence 

 they are found in Worcestershire and Staffordshire ; they 

 are found also on most of the extensive heaths of Shropshire, 

 and on the Beswyn chain near Corwen. It is included 

 in the catalogue of the birds of Lancashire, and from 

 thence becomes more plentiful on proceeding northwards. 



Black Grouse are common over nearly the whole of 

 Scandinavia. Linnaeus met with it on his tour high up 

 in the forests of Lapland ; it is found in Russia, Siberia, 

 Poland, Germany, Holland, France, and along the whole 

 chain of the Alps, and other mountain ridges that are 

 covered with forests, and, according to Savi, in Italy. 



Having mentioned the tendency among Pheasants and 

 Grouse to breed one with another occasionally, without re- 

 striction to their own species, I may here particularise the 

 various examples of hybrids between the Pheasant and the 

 Black Grouse in the order in which they have been re- 

 corded. The first is the bird noticed by Gilbert White of 



