^.VZ> NEIGHBOURHOOD. 291 



more nearly allied to it, and varieties of the pure-bred 

 birds often occur. We had the pleasure of examining 

 the skin of a fine adult male procured in Leadenhall 

 Market, in which a great portion of the plumage of 

 the back and wings w^as barred and marked so as to 

 resemble in no small degree that of a Silver Ham- 

 burgh Fowl. The Black Grouse is found in suitable 

 localities in many, if not most, parts of Europe and 

 temperate Asia ; its occurrence in Spain, however, 

 seems to be open to doubt, though it is found in 

 certain localities on the French side of the Pyrenees. 

 It is perhaps superfluous to add that as we have 

 neither pine-forests, granite-mountains, nor heather- 

 clad moors in our county, our other three British 

 species of Grouse, viz. Capercaillie, Hed Grouse, and 

 Ptarmigan, are not therein indigenous, but there is 

 another European species of this family, to wit, the 

 Hazel-Grouse {Bonasia hefuUna), which is tolerably 

 common in certain parts of Central Europe, and 

 might, as we are convinced, be successfully intro- 

 duced into our Islands. The experiment is well 

 worthy of a trial, as the bird in question is a beautiful 

 species, excellent for the table, and would not require 

 much, if any, artificial protection ; it belongs, as does 

 the Black Grouse, to what we may call the arboreal 

 division of the Grouse family, in wdiich the toes are 

 not feathered as they are in our Red Grouse and 

 Ptarmigan. 



To return to the subject of the present article, 

 the only district in which we have personally met 

 with it, outside the British Islands, is in the Alps 

 of North-western Italy, where it is sparingly found 

 in the pine-forests, and known to the natives as 

 "Fagiano," which word properly applies to the 



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