Identifier: gamebirdsshooti00mill (find matches)
Title: Game birds and shooting-sketches : illustrating the habits, modes of capture, stages of plumage and the hybirds & varieties which occur amongst them
Year: 1894 (1890s)
Authors: Millais, John Guille, 1865-1931
Subjects: Grouse Game and game-birds Hunting
Publisher: London : H. Sotheran
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library

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withblack. One killed by John Sutherland, Lord Cawdorskeeper, had thick black bars across every feather underthe tail. The number of species with which Blackgame havebeen known to interbreed is larger than that of any othergame bird. These hybrids are of very rare occurrence,and, with the exception of the cross with the Capercaillie,are not likely to be met with by sportsmen. The otherkinds with which they have been known to breed areGrouse, Pheasant, Bantam, and Common Fowl. InSweden it also crosses occasionally with the Eipaor Willow-Grouse, of which there is a good specimenin the Dublin Museum. The hybrid with the Pheasantis by far the most beautiful and interesting; and thespecimen belonging to Mrs. Hunter, of Glen App, Ayr- BLACKCAMK 105 sliire, from \vlii<h the illustration on pago 64 is taken, Is thehandsomest hyhrid of any game species 1 have ever seen.It is usuallv the case tiiat, in most of the crosses with whi<hthe Blackcock has anytiiinn- to do, the ycmn^, take very
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YOUNG BLACKCOCK IN STATE OF CHANGE. strongly after him, and are generally of a very (>lain andblack appearance, without possessing tliat nohle birdsindividual beauties, but in this specimen the characteristicsof both the parents are ))erfectly distinct. The crosses with the (Irouse arc usuallv vcrv dark, and 106 GAME BIRDS AND SHOOTING-SKETCHES I have selected the specimen that is drawn in the illustra-tion on page 68 from amongst some twenty that I haveseen, as it is the only one where the markings of the Grouseare distinctly contrasted with those of the Blackgame. As in the case of the Capercaillie, any form of varietyin Blackgame is extremely rare, and I have never had thegood fortune to see any more advanced in albinism thanthe specimen of which I give an engraving on page 56,and the pale hen, with Mr. Kothschilds varieties,which is from my own collection.^ Even in Norway,Sweden, and Kussia, w^here vast numbers of the birds areslain annually, it is very rarely that varieties oc

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