207 



conspicuous bands of a dull cream-colour across them; underparts sulphur-yellow, washed with pale 

 rufous on the breast. 



Obs. In plumage the Blackgame is often subject to considerable variation. Mr. Collett informs me that 

 he has " seen many peculiar varieties, chiefly amongst the males, from various parts of Norway. Some 

 are almost uniform white in colour, others speckled with white; and in Southern Norway a variety 

 having the back and scapulars spotted with white is not uncommon, and I have seen at least a dozen 

 such birds in the various Norwegian museums. Sterile females are found annually. They agree with 

 the males more or less in plumage, but are easily recognizable by their under tail-coverts, which are 

 almost always pure white, unspotted, and by having the lower portion of the throat more or less white. 

 Only very old sterile females have the blue neck and curved tail-feathers. Sterility is not always a 

 sign of old age, as young sterile females are met with having diseased ovaries, which appears to be the 

 general cause of sterility." 



The Black Grouse is found from Scandinavia down to Spain and Italy, and eastward through 

 Siberia into China. 



In Great Britain it is tolerably numerous, but more so in the north than in the south, as it 

 cannot exist where cultivation is carried on to a great extent and its favourite moors are utilized 

 for the purposes of agriculture. Yarrell states that " in the southern parts of England, Black 

 Grouse are found in Sussex, on Ashdown forest, and on St. Leonard's forest near Horsham, 

 and from Pudmores along the brows of the heath-hills towards Tilford, and again from Tilford 

 up to the Devil's Punch-bowl on Hindhead. In 1815, H. M. Thornton, Esq., of Chatham, 

 brought two Blackcocks and three Greyhens from Holland. These birds were turned out on 

 the Hurtwood, a tract of heath between Guildford and Dorking. At that time this species of 

 game had been extinct in that part for fifty years ; but these foreign birds, being well preserved, 

 have replenished the district. They bred the following spring after their introduction; and the 

 first nest observed was within a hundred yards of the spot where they were first turned out. 

 Some of the descendants of these birds have strayed to the heathy districts between Farnham 

 and Bagshot, and have extended themselves as far as Finchampstead, in Berkshire. Black 

 Grouse occur again in Hampshire, on the New Forest, and thence along to the westward in 

 Dorsetshire ; they are found on Dartmoor and Exmoor, in Devonshire, and are abundant on 

 the property of Lord Caernarvon near Dulvarton. on the north-eastern border of Devonshire, 

 and the heaths of Somersetshire, and are found in Worcestershire and Staffordshire ; they 

 are found also on most of the extensive heaths of Shropshire, and on the Besyn chain near 

 Corvven. They are included in the Catalogue of the Birds of Lancashire, and from thence become 

 more plentiful on proceeding northwards." In Somersetshire it is no longer abundant; for 

 Mr. Cecil Smith, of Taunton, informs me that " it is now only an occasional visitant to the 

 Blagdon hills and some other parts of Somerset, where formerly it used to be more numerous. 

 On the Brendon hills and the wild open country from Dunster to Dunkerry and Exmoor it still 

 continues a tolerably numerous and regular inhabitant. In some of these parts, however, it is, 

 I fear, being gradually improved off the face of the earth by mining and agricultural operations." 

 In Norfolk, Mr. Stevenson writes, it is " a resident, though entirely confined to one district in 

 the neighbourhood of Lynn, where alone the various attempts to naturalize this species have 

 proved successful, the birds either dying in a natural way, or being killed off, beyond the scope 



