THE DECREASE OF BLACKGAME 109 



Blackgame affect the rough, hilly ground bordering 

 cultivated land, where there are plantations of fir 

 and birch, in which they perch like Pheasants, hid- 

 ing in the thick bracken on the sides of the hills, 

 drawing down to the rushy bottoms and moist 

 ground about the burns, where they find most of 

 their daily fare, and visiting the oatfields at twi- 

 light. They may even be found sometimes in fields 

 of roots or potatoes, at some distance from their 

 usual haunts, for they are strong fliers, and when 

 crossing a valley or travelling at a height look 

 something like Wild Ducks, frying in a straight line 

 with outstretched heads and necks. In their fond- 

 ness for acorns and oats they also remind one of 

 Ducks, and, like them, come off the moor at sun- 

 down in search of this kind of food. In the early 

 morning they may be seen flying out from the birch 

 woods and making for the patches of bracken on 

 the hillsides, their black and white plumage show- 

 ing up finely against such a background in the 

 ofleam of the rising- sun. 



The best districts for Blackgame in Scotland, 

 according to Mr Millais, are Dumfriesshire, Rox- 

 burgh, and parts of Perthshire, Inverness, and 

 Aberdeenshire ; and in England, Westmorland, 

 Cumberland, and Northumberland, the borders of 

 Durham and Yorkshire, Shropshire, and Stafford- 

 shire. Up to a comparatively recent date good 

 bags of Blackgame were made on Exmoor and the 

 neighbouring hills in Somersetshire, where, for 

 example, on September i, 1884, two guns killed 

 twenty-seven brace. On Dartmoor and in the 



