BLACK GROUSE. 435 



TETRAO TETRIX. 



BLACK GROUSE. 



(Plate 20.) 



Lagopus urogallus minor, Briss. Orn. i. p. 186 (1760). 



Tetrao tetrix, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 274 (1766); et auctorum plurimoruin — 



Latham, Temminck, Naumann, Dresser, Saunders, &c. 

 Urogallus tetrix (Linn.), Kaup, Nat. Syst. p. 180 (1829). 

 Lyrurus tetrix {Linn.), Swains. Faun. Bor.-Ainer. p. 497 (1831). 

 Tetrao juniperorum, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 609 (1831). 

 Lyrurus derbiauus, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1837, p. 132. 

 Tetrao derbianus (Gould), Gray, Oen. B. iii. p. 516 (1845). 



The Black Grouse formerly inhabited the whole of Great Britain 

 wherever suitahle localities were to be found; but in many of these, espe- 

 cially in the south and east of England, it has been exterminated, though 

 in some it has been successfully re-introduced. It is not found on the 

 Orkneys or the Shetland Islands ; nor, strange to say, in any part of 

 Ireland, though attempts have been made to introduce it into all these 

 localities. There is no record of its occurrence on any of the Outer 

 Hebrides or the Channel Islands. 



The Black Grouse inhabits the pine- and birch-forests of Europe and 

 Siberia. There is no record of its occurrence on the Faroes or Iceland. 

 In Scandinavia its range extends as far north as lat. 69^° ; but in Russia 

 and West Siberia, as far east as the Yenesay, it scarcely reaches lat. 68° ; 

 and in the valley of the Lena it does not exceed lat. 63°. The occurrence 

 of this bird in North Siberia east of the latter valley is very doubtful. 

 Throughout Central Europe and Southern Siberia it is found in suitable 

 localities as far south as the Alps and the northern Apennines. Its occur- 

 rence in the Pyrenees appears to be doubtful. In the valley of the Danube 

 it is almost exterminated, and appears to be absent altogether from the 

 extreme south of Russia, being replaced in the Caucasus by an allied but 

 perfectly distinct species. It is found at an elevation of from 6000 to 

 10 000 feet in North-eastern Turkestan, and is very common in South 

 Siberia, extending eastwards iu the valley of the Amoor as far as the river 

 Ussuri and southwards up the tributaries of the Amoor into Mantchooria *, 

 thus nearly, but not quite, reaching the shores of the Pacific. 



* Dresser in his ' Birds of Europe,' says that Swinhoe says that Pere David says that 

 the Black Grouse occurs in North China. Saunders, in his continuation of Newton's 

 ' Yarrell ' also says that it occurs in North China, without quoting any authority. David 



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