8 



burrows. If possible they roost on the branch of a tree or else on the ground, and in the winter 

 in the snow." 



" This Grouse," says Bailly, " loves solitude, and affects the forests of pine and larch, the 

 hazel-thickets and beech-growth ; sometimes it is met with in places overgrown with birch 

 bushes, heather, myrtles, raspberry-bushes, and ferns, and free from trees, but close to woods, 

 where it retires after feeding 



" The Gelinotte appears to me to be always monogamous. During the pairing-season the 

 males are not quarrelsome like the Blackcocks and Capercailzies ; nor like those birds do they fight 

 for possession of the females. He generally remains with the female with which he has paired 

 during the season of incubation, and accompanies her when she leaves the nest in search of food. 

 When the young are hatched he goes with her as she leads them about, and like her calls to 

 collect the family. In Savoy they lay in the month of May, forming a simple nest of straws, dry 

 leaves, and flexible roots, on the ground, under a hazel bush or heath, or a bunch of ferns, laying 

 from nine to fifteen eggs. 



With regard to the food of the Hazel-Grouse, we cannot do better than translate the 

 following notes from Naumann's most excellent work on the Birds of Germany : — " In the 

 spring it feeds on buds and the catkins of the hazel, birch, and alder, as also the berries of the 

 juniper-bush, but seldom on the buds of this or of fir trees, which, however, it does not disdain 

 during the winter in places where berries are scarce. Later on it eats the young shoots of the 

 heath (Erica), of grasses, clover, and forest plants, as also of the blueberry bushes ; but towards 

 the summer it feeds principally on insects, eating all sorts of beetles, grasshoppers, flies, spiders, 

 ants, and ants' eggs, insect larvae, and small worms, which it scratches out of the ground ; small 

 snails are also found in its crop. This insect food, however, is always mixed with plants, buds, 

 and seeds. During the summer it appears to be fond of and feed principally on the red berries 

 of the Sambucus racemosa and the Vaccinium myrtillus, but also eats strawberries, currants, 

 raspberries, and blackberries (Bubus saxatilis and B. chamcemorus), as also berries oiB.fruticosus, 

 B. ccesius, Vaccinium vitis idcea, Bubus arcticus (in the north), Vaccinium uliginosum and V. 

 oxycoccus, Empetrum nigrum, and Arbutus uva ursi. It is said to eat the berry of Daphne 

 mezereum, which is poisonous to human creatures, and also the berries of Lonicera xylosteum. 

 In the autumn it feeds greedily on the mountain-ash berries (Sorbus aucuparia) ; and cranberries, 

 as they do not soon dry or fall, form a chief portion of its food in the winter. It eats the 

 berries of the common elder, the thorn, and the wild rose, as also the seeds of trees and plants, 

 of conifers, birch, and alder (in the north, of the dwarf birch, Betula nana), and beech-nuts." 

 Mr. Collett examined the contents of the stomach of a half-grown young bird shot in Nordmarken, 

 near Christiania, 25th of July 1868, and found it to contain vegetable matter only, viz. unripe 

 berries of Vacc. vitis i&oea, several berries (ripe) of Myrtillus nigra, and seeds of Trientalis euro- 

 pcea, Melampyrum sylvaticum, and Viola canina. 



No better account of the habits of the Hazel-Grouse will be found than that given by 

 Mr. L. Lloyd, in his book on the Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway, from 

 which we make the following extracts, in order to render our history of the species as complete 

 as possible : — " The flight of the Hazel-Hen is very noisy, but short withal, seldom extending 

 beyond a couple of hundred yards. During both summer and winter it is mostly on the ground, 



