92 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



Considerably less than a centur}'' ago poor 

 men made a living by shooting the lordly grouse 

 in the romantic old way — over dogs ; but so 

 fashionable has the sport become, that it is now 

 almost exclusively the pastime of millionaires and 

 combinations of prosperous merchants, who pay 

 fabulous sums for good moors, and engage small 

 armies of men to repress the natural enemies of 

 the bird. Not long ago, whilst in the Highlands 

 of Scotland, I counted no less than eighteen 

 heads of ravens nailed up in a gamekeeper's 

 vermin museum. 



The call-note of the female red grouse is easily 

 imitated, and, when well done, proves a most se- 

 ductive attraction, as most poachers are aware, to 

 the males. By repeating it, my brother drew the 

 old cock figured in the illustration on the oppo- 

 site page within practical range of his gun camera. 



Grouse are very talkative birds, and there can 

 be no more glorious experience for either orni- 

 thologist or sportsman than to sit hidden in 

 some deep moss hag during the dappled dawn of 

 a fine autumn morning and listen to them. 



At the first peep of day the females commence 

 to cry yow, yow, yow, and are answered almost 

 immediately by their companions springing into 

 the air on whirring wings, and calling out in 

 loud, far-sounding notes, birheck, goback, goback, 

 goback. I have many times seen members of the 



