278 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Here is a description of the English haunts of the Black 
Grouse, Tetrao tetrix :— 
‘‘ Whilst in August one’s eye rests day after day upon an almost 
unvarying, unbroken sea of purple heather, glorious in its fullest 
bloom, with its golden pollen streaming away in a little cloud to 
leeward of the course of dog and man; now our sport, in search of 
Black-game, lies amidst widely different scenes, no less wild and 
hardly less beautiful. Stretches of rolling prairie-land, of rough grass, 
rush, and bracken, interspersed here and there with straggling patches 
of natural birch and hazel, take the place of the heather ; and instead 
of wide-spreading moors, one now rambles along tortuous little cleughs, 
shaggy with lichen-covered birch and rowan-tree, or up the rugged 
course of a steep-sided rocky glen, the favourite haunt of young “grey,” 
and many of which are amongst the most exquisitely wild and charming 
nooks ever carved out by Nature. In these sequestered spots, as a 
September sun shines brightly through the scattered birches, upon the 
masses of bracken and variegated foliage below, amongst which the 
setters are bustling about, their russet coats in sharp contrast with the 
dark rushes and paler fern, surely one has as fair a scene as eye need 
wish to rest on. 

Youne Buacxcocx. September 1. 
“Young Black-game are among the slowest of game-birds in 
attaining maturity. They are hatched early in June, but cannot be 
considered full-grown till the end of September, and during their four 
months of adolescence are certainly the ‘‘ softest’ and most tender of 
all the game-birds—a curious contrast with their strong and hardy 
nature when adult. Even when half-grown it is quite common to see 
a young Blackcock, if put up two or three times on a wet day, become 
so draggled and exhausted as to be unable to rise again. 
«The habits of young Black-game are precisely analogous with 
their tardy bodily development. All through their protracted adoles- 
