CHAPTER XVIII 



STAG MOSS AND HEATHER 

 (The Red Grouse) 



FEW subjects are more interesting than the flora 

 of the hills, the part played by the birds which 

 essentially belong thereto, and the cultivation, dis- 

 tribution, and preservation of the plants on which they 

 depend. The chief foods of the grouse are heather, 

 ling, erica cinered, and some other species of heath, and 

 as everyone knows the success of a grouse moor depends 

 very largely on the proper burning of the heather. The 

 moor fires are arranged each year so that a certain area 

 is burnt close, the men controlling the fires by means 

 of planks and wet bags, which are used to beat out the 

 flames when the prescribed boundaries are reached. 

 On a well-controlled moor, the burning is arranged so 

 that every part of the moor is covered once in ten years. 

 During the previous part of the first year the burnt area 

 is of no use, but towards the end of the first year and 

 during the second year it grows in an abundance of young 

 shoots which afford the very best food for the moorgame 

 During the fourth and fifth years the food is a little 

 coarser, but the growing heather affords fairer cover, 

 and the big heather of the seventh, eighth and ninth 

 years affords the necessary refuge for the birds from their 

 enemies and from storms. In deep snow it is often the 

 only heather to which the grouse can get access, and thus it 

 will be seen that if the birds are to enjoy the advantage of 

 every kind of food and cover they require, they must have 

 the heather in its various stages of nine years' growth. 



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