154 
TIIE COMMON BLACK GROUSE, 
Tlie favourite abode of the black grouse is an 
alpine sheep country* where there is comparatively 
little heath, moist flats or meadows, with a rank 
and luxuriant herbage, and where the glades or passes 
among the hills are clothed with natural brush of 
birch, hazel, willow, and alder, and have a tangled 
bottom of deep fern. These afford both an abund- 
ant supply of food, and shelter from the cold at night, 
and from the rays of the mid-summer's sun. 
Like the greater proportion of the true grouse, the 
black game is polygamous; and during the mouths of 
January, February, and March, when his adult breed- 
ing plumage of glossy steel-blue is put on, he is a noble- 
looking and splendid bird. In the warmer sunny days 
at the conclusion of winter and commencement of 
spring, the males after feeding may be seen arrang- 
ed, on some turf fence, rail, or sheep-lbld, pluming 
their wings, expanding their tails, and practising, as it 
were, their murmuring love-call. If the weather now 
continues warm, the flocks soon separate, and the 
males select some conspicuous spot, from whence 
they endeavour to drive all rivals, and commence to 
display their arts to allure the female. The places 
selected at such seasons are generally elevations; 
the turf enclosure of a former sheep-fold which lias 
been disused, and is now grown over, or some of 
those beautiful spots of fresh and grassy pasture, 
which are every where to he seen, and are well known 
to the inhabitants of a pastoral district. Here, after 
perhaps many battles have been fought and rivals van- 
