THE BLACK GROUSE. 
39 
Ayrshire often complain of the damage done to their crops by these 
species, and more especially by the black grouse. In reference 
to the common error that this bird increases at the expense of the red 
game, it may be stated that in this county the numbers of the latter 
have in consequence suffered no diminution. Although the two 
species are occasionally found in the same haunts — grey hens and 
red grouse sometimes being before the dog at the same “ point” — 
their places of abode are generally different. In the autumn of 1837 
my friend first saw the hens of the black game packed there, when 
fourteen or fifteen appeared together. He has seen so many as seventy 
black cocks in company. 
Iday^ Jan. 1849. — When beating the covers about Ardimersy for 
woodcocks, on the first two or three days of this month before frost com- 
menced, great numbers of grey-hens were sprung, and after a few days 
of frost many black-cocks also, the latter having previously been among 
the heath of the mountains. The black game season being over accord- 
ing to law on the 1 0th of Dec., we could not legally shoot any of 
these birds ; although it would have been a very satisfactory way of 
obtaining them, when beating for woodcocks at the same time. We 
could not but consider how much better it were, as a general law, that 
the black game shooting should commence from four to six weeks later 
than the 20th of August, and continue so much longer after the 10th of 
December : — the period allowed for shooting them is perhaps long 
enough. That it commences too early both for them and red 
grouse, genuine sportsmen — (those who will not raise their guns to 
shoot miserable “ pouts,” although these do count as well as full- 
grown birds in the report of number killed) — who have been accus- 
the flower of a Ranunculus ; tops of the leaves of the greater plantain {Plantago 
lanceolatd) ; and a few seeds of grasses, Nov. — One filled with oats ; another with 
portions of a woody plant, perhaps heath ; a third (black-cock) whoUy filled with the 
tops of heath {Calhina), except a few bits of the stem of the cranberry {Vaccinium 
oxycoccos) and leaves of Scabiosa succisa. Jan. — Black-cock filled with tops of 
heath {Calluna) except a few flower-buds of the hazel; a second with oats and the 
tops of heath, which apparently had given a pink tinge to the grain longest in the 
stomach ; a third filled with flower buds of hazel and birch, together with a few green 
tops of herbaceous plants ; a fom'th entirely filled with yellowish-green woody matter, 
probably of the bilberry myrtillus) ■, as the only perfect pieces of the 
stem were of that plant : — heath seems to be the cause of a reddish-tinge being im- 
parted to the whole matter in the stomachs of red-grouse. Feb. — Black-cock wholly 
fiUed with the male flowers of the hazel in an unexpanded state. Fragments of stone 
were in all the gizzards. 
