Northern Observations of Inland Birds 25 



grouse chicks on the moor is never remotely equivalent 

 to the mouse millions on the slopes below, and therefore 

 the slopes below afford the best hunting for the buzzard. 

 So there is no reason why this bird should suddenly 

 change its habits for the brief period of the grouse 

 chick season. 



I am not putting up a case for the preservation of the 

 buzzard. I am merely stating my own observations and 

 conclusions, which are those of one not uninterested in 

 game preservation, and by which we arrive at the decision 

 that the young grouse lifted by buzzards are picked up 

 by chance rather than as a result of systematic searching. 

 Thus the number destroyed in this way is infinitesimal 

 compared with the number that meet their fates in other 

 ways. Moreover they are the very young, ten or fifty or 

 eighty per cent, (dependent on the season) might meet 

 death otherwise had not the buzzard taken them. The 

 taking of the very young is not the severe blow to a species 

 that is the taking of the half-grown, and each day in the 

 existence of a grouse chick enormously enhances its 

 value from the point of view of the sporting possibilities 

 of the moor. And — this is an important point — the 

 grouse chicks are ** very young *' only for a few days of 

 their existence. They can fly when little larger than 

 larks, and by the time this stage is reached the buzzard 

 ceases to figure among their foes. A buzzard may pluck 

 a newly hatched chick from the heather, just the same 

 as it would take up a mouse, but as soon as the young 

 grouse can '* breast the slope '' they have little or nothing 

 to fear from this bird of prey. 



Because, then, the buzzard does not specialize in chick 

 hunting, because it takes only the very young, a large 

 number of which would die otherwise had not the bird 

 of prey stepped in, and lastly because grouse chicks learn 

 to take care of themselves so early in their existence, it 



