36 tetraonid^e. 



miles apart.) At the beginning of August 1839 I went to Scotland, and got nine 

 young birds at Douglas Castle. Two of them died on the passage. I turned out the 

 remaining seven on the hill near the place where the old cock used to haunt ; but none 

 of them that I know of were ever seen afterwards. The reason I assign for their 

 not succeeding at this time is, that they were too young, and not fit to manage for 

 themselves without the help of the old bird. In Nov. 1839 I again went to Douglas 

 Castle, got six brace of full-grown birds, viz. seven hens and five cocks ; I got them 

 all safe over to Glenarm, where I kept them for two days, feeding them on com till 

 they recovered from the effects of the passage. I then turned them out in the park 

 quite strong and healthy to all appearance. Some time after, one of the cocks was 

 found dead in the park ; he was quite light and thin of flesh. Another of the cocks 

 was shot about the same time in Glenariff, about eight miles from Glenarm. A few 

 of them kept about the park all winter. Sometimes one would be seen, some- 

 times two, and in the month of March there were three hens and one cock seen 

 together, but about the beginning of May all the hens disappeared, and none of them 

 have been seen since. One cock kept the park all summer, and was seen lately, 

 which is all that I know of here out of the twelve brought over. A cock was shot 

 about two months ago by a gentleman near Ballycastle (about twenty miles distant), 

 which is likely to be another of them. Where all the hens have gone to I cannot 

 say. I am in hopes that some of them may be alive yet, as they are so much like 

 grouse that people who are not acquainted with them would take no notice of them. 

 " I now come to your last query, which is, If they ever bred ? and if they did 

 not succeed, the reasons assigned for their not doing so ? I really confess that I 

 cannot assign any satisfactory reason whatever, as I have no doubt that full-grown 

 birds would live as well in Ireland as they do in Scotland, if they were only let 

 alone. What I am most doubtful about is, whether they will breed as well; and 

 the reason I am doubtful about this is, that when I was in Scotland, keeper with 

 Lord Douglas, at Douglas Castle, where black game are very plentiful, I used, in 

 hunting the dogs over the ground, to find all the young broods of black game, not 

 among heath or moss ground where young grouse generally are, but on white or 

 green ground, where sprit and rushes are plenty, and where you will seldom find 

 young grouse. But when they get strong and able to do for themselves they get 

 into packs, often to the number of forty or fifty, and fly over the whole country, and 

 take both to the woods and corn-fields. When at Douglas last, I was talking to 

 Lord Douglas's keeper about what he thought the young birds fed on. He said that 

 early in the season he had caught some young birds, intending to tame them and 

 learn them to feed, so that I might be better able to get them safe over, but they all 

 died in a day or two. He cut open some of their crops to see what they fed on, 

 and could observe nothing but the seed of the sprit or rush.* Now, from the num- 



* A friend who has examined many of these birds, shot in Ayrshire, has frequently 

 found only what he considered to be the seeds of rushes in them. Mr. Colquhoun, 

 in his work entitled ' The Moor and the Loch,' observes that — " They (hen and 

 young) may always be found near a short thick rush, which can be easily seen on 

 the moor, the brown seeds of which form the principal food of the young packs," 



