THE BLACKCOCK. 
67 
Have ye stooped among the heath and ling, 
To see the Grey Hen stealing, 
With her speckled pouts of tender wing, 
That closely to the covert cling, 
And fear to take the final spring, 
Their whereabout revealing ? 
The Blackcock, wliich most naturalists term Tetrao 
Tetrix may be found in the greatest plenty and finest con- 
dition, amid the wide wild moors and sub-alpine sheep 
districts of Scotland, 
Now wistlin' winds and slaught'rin* guns 
Bring autumn's pleasant weather, 
The Moorcock springs, on whirring wings. 
Among the blooming heather, 
says Burns ; and it is chiefly in those parts of the country, 
where the moors and mountain sides are purple with the 
blossoms of the Erica, that the Black Grouse must be 
sought for. It does not, however, mix with the red species, 
to which it is said to be a determined enemy ; so that some 
Grouse preservers, observing that where the former in- 
creased, the latter decreased, have latterly determined to 
shoot the Grey Hens, in order to keep the stock under. 
This prejudice — as some who have had good opportunities of 
watching the habits of the birds hold it to be — has operated 
greatly in checking the importation of live Blackcocks into 
Yorkshire and some other English counties, where they 
were formerly introduced for the purpose of extending the 
breed. These North Britons it is now said must be kept 
out, if we would keep their red congeners in. Such is the 
impression entertained, whether true or false we cannot 
say, of their Scottish qualities. The counties south of the 
border which this breed is known to inhabit are Hamp- 
shire, in the New Forest, Somersetshire, Devonshire, Dart- 
moor, and Exmoor, and the wilder parts of Staffordshire 
and Lancashire, and Cheshire, in the forest of Delamere. 
Although often frequenting the open moorlands, they are 
partial to swampy lands of rank vegetation, and woody 
tracts where there is plenty of brushwood and deep fern : 
they feed on the young twigs and catkins of the alder, 
bircb, and willow, in the spring; on heath tops and the 
