

CHAPTER XXIV. 



BLACK GROUSE: Natural History. 



MUCH as Tetrao tetrix differs from T. scoticus in its 

 plumage, the difference is still more marked in the habits 

 of these two game-birds. The Red Grouse is essentially 

 a moor bird ; but although Black Game are, for the most 

 part, found in and near moorland, they are a far more 

 tree-loving bird. Wild, rough, half-cultivated country is 

 what the Blackcock prefer ; where the ground is broken, 

 the surface abrupt and irregular, where open moorland 

 alternates with low boggy morass and thick, low covert, 

 plantings or woods ; these are the parts of Great Britain 

 not Ireland, be it noted where the muirfowl loves to pass 

 its days and multiply its species. It is, however, not a 

 very discriminating bird, and if the march of cultivation 

 has trespassed on its limits, it is quite ready to take up its 

 abode on any odd expanses of moorland, common, or 

 brush, obtruding amongst the cultivated fields, provided 

 the spot be a fairly sequestered one, and its domain be 

 undisturbed. The ideal ground for Black Game may 

 be said to be moorland that has been roughly ploughed and 

 planted, up to the time when the trees begin to kill down 

 the heather, sedge, and gorse. If parts of the ground be 

 swampy, so much the better, in the Black Grouse's estima- 

 tion; failing this, it will frequent the edges of more 



