326 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
in my collection. A very beautiful dark bird with lyva^ 
tail was shot near Langholm on November 15th 1909 
and, curiously enough, another specimen o a Greyhen 
assuming the plumage of the Blackcock was picked up on the 
same moor a few days later.* 
Hand-rearing Blackgame, so far as my experience goes 
is not satisfactory, and the experiment has been tried or 
many years, both at Drumlanrig and Capenoch, with in- 
Sfferent success. In 1899 the few birds of both sexes reared 
Tcapenoch were kept in an aviary, and the following spring 
one of the females laid eggs which were fertile. One chick 
hatched but died within a week, and some calamity overtook 
the old birds, aU of which died that year at the autumn 
mLf This', I beheve, is the first record of the species 
breeding in captivity, and conclusively proves that they 
can breed in their first year. 
A curious instance of a brace of Blackgame havmg been 
knocked down by an engine on the railway near ThomhiU, 
is recorded by the late H. A. Macpherson.f 
THE RED GROUSE. Losfopws scoiicws (Latham). 
Local names-GKonsE ; Gorcock ; MooRrowL ; Mooe- 
cocK ; MooEHEN ; MuiECOcK ; Muirhen ; Red Game. 
" Blyth August is come, aud the «P°'''='™'\^' ThTm • 
Are waked by the watch-dog, the cock and the ho™ , 
A common resident on our moor, and uplands. 
In neither of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland is 
there any reference, as regards Dumfriesshire, to the 
* Fieldy December 4th, 1909. 
t Zoologist, 1883, p. 259. 
X Quickly. 
