BLACK GROUSE. 191 
located; one, a grey hen, is recorded by J. B. Ellman, Esq., 
in the “Zoologist,” page 3330, as having been caught near 
Lewes, Sussex, on the 30th. of October, 1851: the cock bird 
was seen at the same time. One, a female, was shot near 
Hampton Court, Herefordshire, the seat of J. Arkwright, Esq., 
in March, 1850; another, also a female, was found dead at 
Elvedon, in Suffolk, on the 12th. of October, 1844; a male 
had been seen in the adjoining parish the first week m Sep- 
tember. One was captured on Urchfont Down, near Devizes, 
Wiltshire, in April, 1851, by a gamekeeper of Lord Broughton 
De Gifford; one shot near Forest Hill, Oxfordshire, in October, 
1836. They breed regularly near Axmouth, Devonshire; and 
also on Exmoor, Dartmoor, and Sedgemoor. 
These birds have now become quite localized in various 
parts of the neighbourhood of Windermere, Westmorland, 
having made their first appearance in that district in 1845. 
They are found in Surrey, m St. Leonard’s Forest, near 
Horsham, Tilford, and Hindhead, Farnham, Bagshot, Guildford, 
and Dorking, celebrated for another breed of fowl, and in 
which neighbourhood, at Hurtford, in the year 1815, H. M. 
Thornton, Esq., of Chobham, also recently so famous for the 
military camp there, turned out five birds: the race had 
before existed there, but had been extinct about fifty years. 
They are found also in Shropshire, near Corwen, and in other 
parts, and in Staffordshire, and, it 1s said, in Worcestershire 
and Lancashire, and near Finchamstead, in Berkshire. 
In Scotland it is abundant in Sutherlandshire, Dumfries- 
shire, and Galloway, and in many other parts, and some of 
its Islands—Mull, Skye, and others, and Selby says, in some 
of the Hebrides. It is also met with in some parts of 
Wales, where it is strictly preserved. 
Its natural resorts are the lower parts of hills and valleys 
where there is a natural growth of birch, alder, and willow 
trees, and a wild vegetation prevails of fern and heather, 
woods and herbage affording it a shelter, and also water, near 
which it is only to be found, whether the morass or the 
mountain stream. 
It is a singular circumstance in the natural history of this 
bird, as pointed out to me by Mr. D. M. Falconer, of Loan 
Head, Edinburgh, that the female does not begin to breed 
until three years. This fact he seems, by the account he 
has sent to me, to have established. If alarmed, they fly 
off to a place of security, or drop and remain motionless till 
