172 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



to contest this view, for, when its nest is threatened, 

 the buzzard will sometimes swoop at the intruder 

 with great spirit. A friend of ours while climbing in a 

 particularly awkward spot upon a Welsh cliff was thus 

 " held up " for at least an hour by an angry buzzard. 

 Another, in the Lake District, pushed the attack so 

 closely that its wing was broken by a blow from a 

 stick, showing lack of discretion perhaps but certainly 

 not of valour. 



Between mountain and moor comes a fringe of copse 

 where every bank is carpeted with the delicate fronds 

 of beech and oak-fern, and where in wet spots the 

 stately osmunda rears its five foot fronds and golden 

 spore heads. This, rather than the open moor, is the 

 haunt of the Black Game, and here we may chance to 

 put up a noble black-cock which goes off as if with 

 no intention of stopping short of the next county. 

 Would that we could be present at one of those gather- 

 ings in the frosty dawn of a March morning when the 

 black-cocks strut and spread their tails and spar at 

 one another and scuffle for the edification of the assem- 

 bled grey-hens. But the black-grouse is far from being 

 such a favourite as its kinsman of the moors, — a bird 

 which the true sportsman regards with patriotic pride, 

 for the Red Grouse is supposed to be the only one of our 

 native birds which is entirely confined to Britain. The 

 more general view, however, is to look upon it as an 

 island race of the Willow Grouse, so widely diffused in 



