BLACK-COCK, one of the English names for the Heath-Cock, the male of the Black Game or Black Grouse; the Birk-Hahn of the Germans; Coq do Bruyere h Queue Fourchtte, Coq de Bois, and Faisan Bruyant (Belon), of the French ; Gallo di Monte, Gallo Cedrone, Gallo' Selvatico, Gallo Alpestre, Fasan Negro, and Fasiano Alpestre of the Italians ; Orrfugl of the Norwegians ; Tetrao sem Urogallut minor of Willughby and Ray ; Tetrao tetrix of Linnaeus; and byrurus tctriz of Swainson. The female is called a Gray Hen, and the young are named Poults,* a term which is applied to the Black Game generally on the borders of Hampshire and Dorsetshire.
This noble bird, whose plumhge when in full beauty has defied all' pencils save that of Edwin Landseer, the only painter who has given a true idea of it, is now the largest of its race in the British Islands, of whose fauna it is one of the principal ornaments. It is, says Tem minck, more widely diffused over the central parts of Europe than the Capereailzie (Tetrao Urogallus, Pennant); or the Rakkelhan (Tctrao medius, Meyer). In Germauy, France, and Holland it is tolerably plentiful : in the northern countries, such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Russia it abounds.
Of the southern counties of England, Hampshire, Dorsetehire, Somersetshirc, and Devonshire possess it, and new and then it is seen in the heathy parts of and Surrey. In the New Forest, and the wild heaths on the borders of Hampshire and Dorsetshire, in tho neighbourhood of Wimborne, it is perhaps more common than it is anywhere else in the south. The Quantocks, and some other uncul tivated tracts in Somersetshire, and Dartmoor and Sedgemoor in Devonshire are its head-quarters in those counties ; but it is com paratively rare.
Staffordshire has it sparingly, and Northumberland plentifully.
In the Highlands of Scotland the Black-Cock is abundant, and it is found in some of the Hebrides. In North Wales it occurs sparingly, where it is strictly preserved.
The following account of the haunts and habits of the Black-Cock is from the pen of Mr. Selby: " The bases of the hills in heathy and mountainous districts, which are covered with a natural growth of birch, alder, and willow, and intersected by morasses clothed with long and coarse herbage, as well as the deep and wooded glens so frequently occurring in extensive wastes, are the situations best suited to the habits of these birds, and most favourable to their increase. During the months of autumn and winter the males associate, and live in flocks, but separate in March or April ; and, being polygamous, each Individual chooses some particular station, from whence he drives all intruders, and for the possession of which, when they are numerous, desperate contests often take place.
At this station he continues every morning during the pairing season (beginning at day-break) to repeat his call of invitation to the other rally in the midst of a high tuft of heath." This Tetrix, then, which the Athenians called Gum:, was not improbably our Black-Cock.
Pliny's description (cap. xxii. lib. x.)—" Decet tetmonas anus nitor absolutaque uigritia, in eupereiliis cocci rubor"—looke very like our bird, though the passage occurs in his chapter on Geese, and so it struck Delon. The tet flumes mentioned in company with the peacocks, guinea-fowls, and pheasants, in chap. xii. of Suctonine (in Cult.) were probably the same.
sex, displaying a variety of attitudes, not unlike those of a turkey cock, accompanied b' it crowing note, and one similar to the noise made by the whetting of a scythe. At this season his plumage exhibits the richest glosses, and the red skin of hie eyebrows assumes a superior intensity of colour. With the cause that urged their tem porary separation their animosity ceases, and the male birds again associate and live harmoniously together. Tho female deposits her eggs in May ; they are from six to ten in number, of a yellowish-gray colour, blotched with reddish-brown. The nest is of most artless con struction, being composed of a few dried stems of gram placed on the ground, under the shelter of a tall tuft or low bush, and generally in marshy spots where long and coarse grasses abound. The young of both sexes at first resemble each other, and their plumage is that of the hen, with whom they continue till the autumnal moult takes place; at this time the males acquire the garb of the adult bird, and quitting their female parent join the societies of their own sex. The food of the black grouse, during the summer, chiefly consists of the seeds of some species ofJuneus, the tender shoots of heath and insects. In autumn the Crowberry °rt.:me-crook (Einpeimins n lumina), the Cranberry ( l'eccinium oxycoccos), the Whortleberry (rocciniunt finis Idea), and the Trailing Arbutus (A rctoctapkylos ran afibrd it a plentiful subsistence. In winter, and during severe and snowy weather, it oats the tops and buds of the birch and alder, as well as the embryo shoots of the fir tribe, which it is well enabled to obtain, as it is capable of perching upon trees without difficulty. At thin season of the year, in mitnations where amble land is interspersed with the wild tracts it inhabits, descending into the stubble grounds, it feeds on grain." Llnmenn says that the young are brought up upon gnats.