240 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
BLACK GROUSE. 
{T!etrao tetrix.) 
Blackcock, Greyhen, Black Game, Heath-poult. 
— The Blackcock still survives in some heathy 
districts of the south and west of England, and is 
common in many parts of the northern counties 
and of Scotland. While the Red or common 
Grouse is a thorough bird of the open moorlands, 
the Blackcock prefers the rough, half-wooded 
ground which intervenes between the moors and 
the lower cultivated lands. It is a considerably 
larger bird than the Grouse (for though it is a 
kind of Grouse itself, it is usual to speak of the 
two sexes as Blackcock and Greyhen, and to 
confine the name of Grouse to the species next 
described), and the sexes show a more striking 
contrast of plumage. The Blackcock is chiefly 
bluish-black in colour, tinged in parts with brown ; 
there is a white patch on the wing and another 
under the tail, which ends in a striking out-turned 
fork, somewhat resembling on a smaller scale the 
tail of the Australian Lyre-bird. There is a bare 
red streak above the eye. The Greyhen is chiefly 
light reddish-brown, with numerous crescent-shaped 
markings of blackish-brown. Like the Caper- 
