on the other hand, weighs only 2 ℔, its plumage is of a russet brown colour irregularly barred with black, and its tail feathers are but slightly forked. The males are polygamous, and during autumn and winter associate together, feeding in flocks apart from the females; but with the approach of spring they separate, each selecting a locality for itself, from which it drives off all intruders, and where morning and evening it seeks to attract the other sex by a display of its beautiful plumage, which at this season attains its greatest perfection, and by a peculiar cry, which Selby describes as “a crowing note, and another similar to the noise made by the whetting of a scythe.” The nest, composed of a few stalks of grass, is built on the ground, usually beneath the shadow of a low bush or a tuft of tall grass, and here the female lays from six to ten eggs of a dirty-yellow colour speckled with dark brown. The blackcock then rejoins his male associates, and the female is left to perform the labours of hatching and rearing her young brood. The plumage of both sexes is at first like that of the female, but after moulting the young males gradually assume the more brilliant plumage of their sex. There are also many cases on record, and specimens may be seen in the principal museums, of old female birds assuming, to a greater or less extent, the plumage of the male. The blackcock is very generally distributed over the highland districts of northern and central Europe, and in some parts of Asia. It is found on the principal heaths in the south of England, but is specially abundant in the Highlands of Scotland.
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Blackcock.
BLACK COUNTRY, THE, a name commonly applied to a district lying principally in S. Staffordshire, but extending into Worcestershire and Warwickshire, England. This is one of the chief manufacturing centres in the United Kingdom, and the name arises from the effect of numerous collieries and furnaces, which darken the face of the district, the buildings and the atmosphere. Coal, ironstone and clay are mined in close proximity, and every sort of iron and steel goods is produced. The district extends 15 m. N.W. from Birmingham, and includes Smethwick, West Bromwich, Dudley, Oldbury, Sedgley, Tipton, Bilston, Wednesbury, Wolverhampton and Walsall as its most important centres. The ceaseless activity of the Black Country is most readily realized when it is traversed, or viewed from such an elevation as Dudley Castle Hill, at night, when the glare of furnaces appears in every direction. The district is served by numerous branches of the Great Western, London & North Western, and Midland railways, and is intersected by canals, which carry a heavy traffic, and in some places are made to surmount physical obstacles with remarkable engineering skill, as in the case of the Castle Hill tunnels at Dudley. Among the numerous branches of industry there are several characteristic of certain individual centres. Thus, locks are a specialty at Wolverhampton and Willenhall, and keys at Wednesfield; horses’ bits, harness-fittings and saddlery at Walsall and Bloxwich, anchors and cables at Tipton, glass at Smethwick, and nails and chains at Cradley.
BLACK DROP, in astronomy, an apparent distortion of the
planet Mercury or Venus at the time of internal contact with the
limb of the sun at the beginning or end of a transit. It has been
in the past a source of much perplexity to observers of transits,
but is now understood to be a result of irradiation, produced by
the atmosphere or by the aberration of the telescope.
BLACKFOOT (Siksika), a tribe and confederacy of North
American Indians of Algonquian stock. The name is explained
as an allusion to their leggings being observed by the whites to
have become blackened by marching over the freshly burned
prairie. Their range was around the headwaters of the Missouri,
from the Yellowstone northward to the North Saskatchewan and
westward to the Rockies. The confederacy consisted of three
tribes, the Blackfoot or Siksika proper, the Kaina and the
Piegan. During the early years of the 19th century the Blackfoots
were one of the strongest Indian confederacies of the north-west,
numbering some 40,000. At the beginning of the 20th century
there were about 5000, some in Montana and some in Canada.
See Jean L’Heureux, Customs and Religious Ideas of Blackfoot Indians in J. A. I., vol. xv. (1886); G. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales (1892); G. Catlin, North American Indians (1876); Handbook of American Indians (Washington, 1907), under “Siksika.”
BLACK FOREST (Ger. Schwarzwald; the Silva Marciana and
Abnoba of the Romans), a mountainous district of south-west
Germany, having an area of 1844 sq. m., of which about two-thirds
lie in the grand duchy of Baden and the remaining third
in the kingdom of Württemberg. Bounded on the south and
west by the valley of the Rhine, to which its declivities abruptly
descend, and running parallel to, and forming the counterpart of
the Vosges beyond, it slopes more gently down to the valley of
the Neckar in the north and to that of the Nagold (a tributary of
the Neckar) on the north-east. Its total length is 100 m., and its
breadth varies from 36 m. in the south to 21 in the centre and 13
in the north. The deep valley of the Kinzig divides it laterally
into halves, of which the southern, with an average elevation of
3000 ft., is the wilder and contains the loftiest peaks, which again
mostly lie towards the western side. Among them are the Feldberg
(4898 ft.), the Herzogenhorn (4600), the Blössling (4260) and
the Blauen (3820). The northern half has an average height of
2000 ft. On the east side are several lakes, and here the majority
of the streams take their rise. The configuration of the hills is
mainly conical and the geological formation consists of gneiss,
granite (in the south) and red sandstone. The district is poor in
minerals; the yield of silver and copper has almost ceased, but
there are workable coal seams near Offenburg, where the Kinzig
debouches on the plain. The climate in the higher districts is
raw and the produce is mostly confined to hardy cereals, such as
oats. But the valleys, especially those on the western side, are
warm and healthy, enclose good pasture land and furnish fruits
and wine in rich profusion. They are clothed up to a height of
about 2000 ft. with luxuriant woods of oak and beech, and above
these again and up to an elevation of 4000 ft., surrounding the
hills with a dense dark belt, are the forests of fir which have given
the name to the district. The summits of the highest peaks are
bare, but even on them snow seldom lies throughout the summer.
The Black Forest produces excellent timber, which is partly sawn in the valleys and partly exported down the Rhine in logs. Among other industries are the manufactures of watches, clocks, toys and musical instruments. There are numerous mineral springs, and among the watering places Baden-Baden and Wildbad are famous. The towns of Freiburg, Rastatt, Offenburg and Lahr, which lie under the western declivities, are the chief centres for the productions of the interior.
The Black Forest is a favourite tourist resort and is opened up by numerous railways. In addition to the main lines in the valleys of the Rhine and Neckar, which are connected with the towns lying on its fringe, the district is intersected by the
