THE INTRODUCTION OF GROUSE TO THE TENTSMUIR 199 



by digging a few feet into the sand. Good coveys are thus 

 produced from dry tracts of heathery ground, where, were it 

 not for the numerous water-holes, no young Grouse could 

 exist. After long-continued wet weather, on the other hand, 

 in autumn and winter, a large part of the moor is sometimes 

 submerged to a depth of six or eight inches ; but at this 

 season the Grouse either entirely shift their quarters for the 

 time to drier ground, or, remaining, seem quite at home on 

 the now insular sandhills. 



While the Tentsmuir thus presents many points of 

 contrast to the more inland Grouse moors, it yet seems to 

 be as the success of the experiment has in fact proved 

 generally suitable as a home for this bird. Stray Grouse 

 may have occasionally crossed the Tay from the Forfarshire 

 moors north of Dundee : one bird, a hen, was killed by my 

 father in September 1872, in a turnip-field on the south 

 bank of the Tay, not more than three miles west of Tents- 

 muir ; and the Scotscraig gamekeeper informs me that, many 

 years ago, he saw a Grouse fired at near this same place- 

 perhaps the same bird, or its mate, however, for, no record of 

 the event having been preserved, I cannot ascertain the 

 exact year in which it took place. Be this as it may, these 

 waifs and strays, if they ever reached Tentsmuir, at all 

 events never established themselves thereon, and it was not 

 until the year 1876 that the late Admiral Maitland Dougall 

 of Scotscraig decided to try an experimental introduction of 

 the bird. Permission having accordingly been obtained from 

 Mr. Adam of Blairadam, on the 2nd July in that year Mr. 

 John Fowlis, the Scotscraig gamekeeper, went with the keeper 

 from Blairadam to the moor of Outh, then rented by Mr. 

 Adam from Mr. Lawrence Dalgleish, and succeeded in captur- 

 ing a pair of well-grown young Grouse, which, being transported 

 to Tentsmuir, were there duly set at liberty. On the 8th 

 August of the following year eight more birds were procured 

 from the same moor; and, as it soon became evident that the 

 experiment was going to meet with a considerable measure 

 of success, everything was at once done that could lighten 

 the struggle for existence of the new colonists. A large staff 

 of men were sent down to dig up turfs covered with the 

 good heather, which were then carted away and relaid in 



