Blackcock

a northern grouse of the Old World. It is closely allied to our partridge and prairie hen. It lives on leaves, buds, and berries in the mosses of northern Britain, Scandinavia, Russia, and Siberia. The male weighs about four pounds and is of a bluish-black color. The female is gray and weighs half as much. Large numbers of the males are brought to the London market, the female being left by common consent to breed unmolested. The handsome male, with a scarlet patch over his eye, and a call likened to the whetting of a scythe, is the bird of which Scott, with Ellen's Isle in mind, says, "At noon the blackcock trims his jetty wing." See Grouse