BIRDS. 
205 
The red grouse is a very abundant species in Caithness. Mr. 
Osborne's father kept a number of these birds in confine- 
ment for several years, and on one occasion a pair bred 
and hatched out five healthy cliicks (0. MSS., 1868).i 
260. Tetrao tetrix, L. Black Grouse. 
Eesident and numerous, being found scattered through the 
eastern districts, irrespective of wood or cover, but is more 
restricted in the west, and confined to birch coverts and the 
lake and river sides, being seldom seen on open ground. 
A trustworthy informant tells us a curious story with 
respect to black-game in the Helmsdale Strath. A very 
old man, named William Gordon, who lived in the Strath, 
and who died when William Armstrong (the informant 
alluded to) was a " youngster," told him that the first black- 
game ever seen there came from Berriedale in Caithness, 
where they had -been introduced by one of the Sinclairs. 
They were first seen on the top of the hill overlooking the 
Strath, but finding it apparently very much to their liking, 
they came down, and soon became very numerous there. 
A shepherd near Syre, in Strathnaver, told Mr. Akroyd, 
the lessee of the Altnaharrow shootings, that black-game 
had only been in that part of the country some fifty or 
sixty years. This would be fifty or sixty years previous 
to 1870. Mr. Akroyd told us this himself. 
Black-game are dying out in parts of Sutherland. There 
are none to be found now at Kintradwell, where they were 
once quite numerous ; the same at Morvich, near Golspie ; 
and we hear the same complaints from many other places 
in the north and east of the county. They are still, how- 
ever, fairly numerous about Rosehall and neighbourhood. 
This, taken in connection with our note about their being 
1 Mr. Osborne, senior, was always fond of nature, and took interest in his 
son's ornithological career. Mr. Osborne used to walk many miles from Wick 
to fetch the tender heather shoots for the old and young grouse, which had 
hatched out within his walls in the town (W. Reid, in lit.). 
