Ptactical Bird-Keeping. 3 r 7


year did his Blackgame really thrive, and that was when they

had the run of a large walled-iu kitchen garden. This suited the

birds admirably, but their ravages among the strawberries and

green vegetables were so serious that the experiment could not

be repeated.


All Game-birds that I have kept, including Grouse, have

taken readily to Mangel-Wurzel roots, and during the winter and

early spring months they are a most valuable food. But in

frosty weather they must not be left out at night, or must be

rolled under some dense bush, so that they do not get frozen.

Coarse and fine grit and plenty of water are necessities to all

Game-birds. In my enclosure there happens to be a clear

running stream, which of course is a great advantage as it

prevents the possibility of soiled drinking pans. Capercaillies

and Blackgame feel the heat of summer, as might be expected,

and must have plenty of shade. My Blackgame roosted in long

grass near the stream, but the Capercaillies perch. Being heavy

birds, when pinioned they are apt to injure themselves it dis¬

turbed from their roosting-places or while coming down in the

mornings. It is advisable, therefore, to take off the lower

branches of bushes or trees which may tempt them up to

dangerous heights; and only leave such bushes and lower trees

as are safe accessible to them. I once had a Capercaillie cock

killed owing to a stranger passing under his tree and causing

him to fly oft his perch after dusk. My Capercaillie hens

generally made their nests, as they so often do in the wild state,

against the bole of a tree. They cover their eggs,and so cleverly

do they conceal the nest that once a Capercaillie hen, by scraping

out a hollow, managed to prevent us from finding her nest on

perfectly bare ground under a beech tree, till one day we un¬

expectedly found her incubating.


Keepers sometimes advance a theory that grey hens do not

lay till the third summer after they are hatched. Long ago I

had clear evidence that this is not correct in regard to Caper¬

caillies, and it seemed unlikely that their smaller relatives would

be slower to attain maturity. But since I have kept Blackgame

I found that they too will breed in their second summer. I

believe the reason why so consideiable a proportion of grey hens



