The Black Grouse 33 
The methods of shooting Blackgame are too well known to be described, as excellent 
accounts will be found in many standard works. No one, however, mentions the best 
sport of all, namely, stalking old Blackcocks with a pea-rifle or .22 long (Savage), fitted 
with a high-power telescopic sight. It has all the elements of deer-stalking, and is 
not nearly so expensive. When packs of Blackcocks are coming to the " stooks " or 
frequenting grassy fields for their pseudo-erotic display, they are not very difficult to 
stalk, and the sport with the .22 Savage or Stevens (Winchester .22 is not quite strong 
enough) is one of the best I know of. They are not much alarmed at the explosion of 
the small nitro cartridges, and I have killed four Blackcocks out of a pack before the 
rest made off. It is, however, absolutely essential not to move or make the slightest 
sound after firing, and to kill the bird at which you have aimed, dead. If it flutters, 
then the other birds at once take alarm. I have of recent years gone in much for this 
sport, and have killed large numbers of partridges, wood-pigeons (in the courting season), 
&c, and can recommend it as one of the best sports I know of, and far superior to a 
great deal of what is termed " good shooting." Sport is altogether a comparative term. 
Some birds brought to the gun or walked up, may not be called " sport," whilst 
shooting Blackcocks or partridges on the moor or field with a rifle may be termed 
"poaching"; but it is nevertheless, when conducted in a proper manner and kept within 
limits, a very high-class form of the chase, requiring skill and the employment of the 
hunter instinct, the two great essentials for enjoyment of sport of any kind. 
With regard to their relations towards other species, I think that Blackgame in no way 
interfere with capercaillie or pheasants. It is scarcely necessary to state that capercaillie 
can look after themselves very well ; in no instance have I heard of one of this species 
ejecting the other from the woods. When Blackgame have left certain woods it is not 
because of the presence of other game, but because these localities have become unsuitable 
to them, and they would have abandoned them in any case. The woods most favoured by 
pheasants in Scotland are also too open in character to suit Black Grouse, and where 
pheasants are placed in woods full of deep heather they scatter to such an extent that 
Blackgame, who are generally in packs, take no notice of them. Moreover, pheasants will 
always work towards cultivated lands sooner or later, whilst Blackgame avoid cultivated 
areas, except during a short period in the autumn. The general " improvements " in 
forest lands have done much to account for the decrease of Blackgame. Like the female 
capercaillie, the Greyhen is apt to become a wanderer in the spring, and it is to these birds, 
unattended by males, that we owe local extensions. When such females have resorted to 
new grounds early in the season and there are no Blackcocks about, they will on rare 
occasions mate with both pheasant and red grouse, and it is interesting to note that, 
although the two species are so widely separated, crosses with the polygamous pheasant 
are far commoner than with the monogamous grouse. Of the first-named hybrids, I have 
recorded five or six examples, and have seen about twenty other specimens, whilst the 
Rev. Francis Jourdain records no fewer than fifty examples. The cross cannot, therefore, 
be considered very rare. 
Yarrell records eleven instances of this cross, 1 but this is augmented to twenty-six 
British specimens by M. Andre Suchetet, 2 although some of these are open to doubt. The 
1 British Birds, vol. ii. p. 307. 2 Des Hebrides a 1'Etat Sauvage, Lille, 1896 (pp. 87-89). 
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