The Black Grouse — Tetrao Tetrix, Linnæus
On the moors and woods of Scotland this is a common species, and it is also found locally in a few places in the west of England, but in some of its other English haunts, notably the New Forest, it has died out.
Like the Capercaillie, they are polygamous, and gather together in spring, the cocks fighting and showing off in a variety of evolutions to the hens. Eventually each cock retires with his hens, and breeding commences in earnest. The nest is merely a scrape in the heather or on the outskirts of a wood, and the eggs, generally ten in number, are yellowish, spotted with reddish brown. The young feed chiefly on insects, but when adult, grain, berries, and the tender shoots of many plants constitute their diet. In autumn they visit the harvest-fields in large numbers at daybreak and dusk. The adult male is bluish black all over, with white under tail coverts and a white wing bar. Length 22 in.; wing 10·5 in. The female, usually known as the “Greyhen,” is of a warm brown, barred and marked with black.