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can seldom approach within a hundred yards of them without resorting to some artifice. A pack must be stalked, rather than ranged for.

In winter, red grouse, as also black-game, may be seen sitting in rows on walls and peat banks, early in a morning; when great numbers are killed by poachers, especially when the ground is covered with snow, at which time the keepers should be doubled, and should be on the alert day and night. Considerable expense is often incurred in watching moors in August, while in December, January, and February, the birds, when they most need protection, are left to take care of themselves. In the winter months, grouse cannot be killed in large quantities, so long as the weather remains open. After a mild winter, there is generally an abundance of grouse the next season- —a proof that their great enemy is the poacher in the snow, and not the sportsman in August !*

* In the winter snows, grouse are killed in great numbers, while sitting in rows on walls. When the weather is mild in January and February, they pair, and are then as easily approached as partridges in September. It is then that the keepers are least on the watch, and then that the cottagers kill the greatest number of birds. It is true that a market cannot then be found for them, but they are deemed little inferior to fowls when boiled in the pot with a piece of bacon.

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Black-game shooting commences on the 20th of August, at which time the birds will suffer the shooter to approach much nearer to them than will the red grouse; indeed, from that day until September, they lie very well, and are very easily killed, except an old cock, which is shy at all seasons. After the young ones have moulted, they become wilder than the red birds, on the open common. They may be easily approached in a wood, where they are sprung and shot like pheasants. They are not met with at any great altitude, but confine themselves. chiefly to the valleys, the lesser hills, and the base of the loftier mountains. They do not frequent the central parts of large wastes so much as those parts bordering on inclosed lands or woods. Red grouse recede where cultivation advances; and they are consequently in a fair way of being banished from England. As there is a greater extent of ground congenial to black-game,

there is no reason to fear their extinction. Heathland planted with larch, is a favourite resort; but they prefer rushy ferny ground and glens of alder and birch, on the buds of which they feed. It might be difficult to introduce the red birds into any county where they are not found at present; but wherever there is land slightly sprinkled with ling, and partially planted with larch, birch, or alder, and if in the vicinity of corn-fields so much the better, black-game might be easily located. They are very destructive to crops of grain. The opening-day for black-game shooting should be the 1st of September. On the 20th of August, the young birds are so indolent that they frequently suffer the dogs to catch them, as they lie basking separately; and the shooter walks them up one by one, so that when a brood is found, the probability is that half the birds will be killed. But the great evil is that the young cocks cannot be distinguished from the hens, and they are shot indiscriminately. The blackcock is like the pheasant, polygamous; therefore, wherever the hens are spared, the game will increase. On the 1st of September, black-game are not so forward, comparatively, as partridges; even that day would be full soon to commence shooting them. They are yearly becoming more abundant in the English plantations, and there can be no more noble addition to the park, the chase, or the forest, than the blackcock. In the lower woodlands, therefore, they should remain undisturbed until November, when the woodcocks arrive. Were this attended to, there would be splendid sport in that month, just when the phea

sants and blackcocks have completed their moult, and when they are in good condition, after gleaning the stubbles.

When the sportsman meets with black-game or muir-fowl, as well as red-game or grouse, he may distinguish the former, if old birds, by their superior size. He cannot but recognise the cock, which is jet black, marked with white on the wings, and is as large and heavy as an Essex pheasant. He will distinguish the hen and poults from the red grouse, by the length of their necks. In form and appearance, when on the wing, black-game resemble wild ducks. They are longer birds than, and not so plump as red grouse, which, in turn, are not so plump as partridges. The plumage of a young blackcock is nearly the colour of that of a red grouse, until the moulting season, which is in October, when he sloughs his brown coat for a suit of sable. The gray-hen and the young blackcock may be distinguished from the red grouse by the under feathers of the tail being mottled brown; those of the latter are black, as in the ptarmigan. Black-game are generally hatched in rushy fields, near to an uninclosed moor or heathery plantation. They visit stubble-fields, or rather corn-fields, for corn is harvested late in those cold countries where the hills are covered with their native brown; whereas the red grouse is rarely known to quit the open moor, unless driven thence by men, dogs, or stress of weather. The red grouse feeds chiefly amidst the heather. Black-game will often feed, and sometimes (though rarely) the red grouse also,

like partridges, in stubbles: black-game are very destructive to crops of grain. Red grouse do not frequent woods. Their nests are generally found in heather; those of black-game in rushy fields or plantations. The eggs of the former are often taken by persons collecting plovers' eggs; and as they are easily found, the temptation to pilfer but too often presents itself. A child may thus do more mischief than the most accomplished poacher. Loiterers at this season should be watched.

The

Blackcocks, during winter, associate together aloof from the grey-hens and red-grouse. grey-hens also pack distinct from the cocks.

Red grouse are never found on moors, where water does not lie within a convenient distance in seasons of drought. Black-game seem to disregard this inconvenience; probably, being larger birds, they can endure a longer flight in search of water.

Black-game are scattered over the whole of the North of Europe. They are found, more or less abundant, in all the Northern, in most of the Midland, and in some of the Southern counties of England. Red grouse are not met with further south than Derbyshire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire. Both abound in Scotland: and in Ireland they are more plentiful than in England. The red grouse only is met with in Wales.

Similar to the blackcock, in many respects is the capercailzie, or cock of the wood, once the native, and now the denizen of the Highland forests. The capercailzie cock weighs sixteen pounds. Speaking

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