3-011-818 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Startled," by Harrison Weir, in the Exhibition of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours, 1864. Engraving. 'Mr. Harrison Weir's drawing of a blackcock...cunningly keeping near the ground to escape observation, and thus affording less chance of a shot, is a representation which will awaken in the mind of the sportsmen who frequent our northern moors many a recollection of the keenest pleasure, which has, however, often been damped by baffled and disappointed pursuit...It may be remembered that in former times the shooting of black grouse was, by law, fixed to commence on the 20th of August, as regarded the northern parts of the kingdom; but the Earl of Carnarvon, who had some black-game preserves in the west of England, had sufficient interest to get a bill passed to limit the shooting of these birds in England from the 1st of September to the 1st of December; and "he well deserves," says Blaine, in his "Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports," "the thanks of every rational sportsman, as well as every lover of his country, who wishes still to see it adorned with these and other winged gems."...To represent a blackcock in flight is the most difficult subject; but this is, perhaps, the best in execution of the artist's works exhibited this year'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.