THE BLACK COCK, (Tetrao tetrix,)
Is about four pounds in weight; but the female, which is usually called the Grey Hen, is often not more than two. The plumage of the whole body of the male is black, and glossed over the neck and rump with shining blue; the coverts of the wings are of a dusky brown, with the quill feathers black and white. The tail is much forked in the male. These birds never pair; but in the spring the males assemble at their accustomed haunts on the tops of heathy mountains, where they crow and clap their wings:
“And from the pine’s high top brought down
The giant Grouse, while boastful he display’d
His breast of varying green, and crow’d and clapp’d
His glossy wings.”
Gisborne.
The females, at this signal, resort to them. The males are very quarrelsome, and fight together like game-cocks. On these occasions they are so inattentive to their own safety, that two or three have sometimes been killed at one shot; and instances have occurred of their having been knocked down with a stick.
Like the Capercalzie, or Cock of the Woods, a larger species of this genus, these birds are common in Russia, Siberia, and other northern countries, chiefly in wooded and mountainous situations; and in the northern parts of our own island on uncultivated moors.
