200 Our Bird Friends. 



sider that be has made a mistake and there is no 

 danger after all, he cries out Gorroh ! gorrok ! which 

 being interpreted means " All is well, friends, 3-011 

 can go to sleep again." But if the fowlers should 

 be detected the Avhole colony of birds will instantly 

 take Aving and fly away, uttering some angry language 

 which sounds like Beero ! harro ! boo ! 



Of all my favourite wild bird calls the one I 

 love best is that of the Red Grouse, a species that 

 is not met with anywhere outside the British Islands. 

 I have heard it on a thousand hill-tnps during the 

 dappled dawn of many a glorious autunm day, when 

 it has filled the air to such an incredible extent that 

 a stranger would have declared the whole moor alive 

 with birds. 



At the tirst blink of day the females awake and 

 commence to call to their companions in a strange 

 nasal note Avhich sounds like Yoil\ yoir, yowl and 

 the males answer by jumping up. and, after rising 

 on their win^-s some distance, throwin<'- back their 

 heads and descending with a resounding Cahow, 

 cahoiv, caheck, caheck, cahech', heck, heck, heck ! AVhen 

 on the Gfround thev also utter several other notes, 

 such as Gockaway, cockaivay, go hack, go hack, the 

 last kind of cry with such astonishing plainness 

 that many people unacquainted with the bird have 

 mistaken it for a human voice. An old woman, who 

 Avas not a native, whilst crossing a Yorkshire moor, 

 heard a Grouse uttering its go-hack note, and was 

 so convinced that it was someone talking to her that 



