278 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



I remember in the Pennines a winter of exceptional 

 severity some years ago, when the grouse came in great 

 packs, like flocks of starHngs, to a certain part of the 

 moor, where the heather had not been burnt for a number 

 of years. On this particular slope it was thigh deep, 

 and the snow had not buried it to the same extent as the 

 shallower growths. It was interesting to watch the 

 birds, many of which were quite emaciated by hunger. 

 They had lost all their fear of man, and one could have 

 killed numbers of them with a walking stick. Alighting 

 on a protruding shoot, the bird would strip every green 

 shoot from it, working from the bottom upwards, but 

 the heather was so old and coarse that though their 

 crops were quite distended, they were nevertheless 

 starving. The food of the grouse at any season contains 

 but a small amount of nourishment, and thus the birds 

 are compelled to eat great quantities of it, and their 

 digestive organs are arranged to assimilate the food 

 in the best manner possible. 



Thus it will be seen that moorgame may suffer hunger 

 with an abundance of their food on every side, unless 

 artificial means be resorted to for feeding the stock of 

 birds, which is probably far greater than the moor would 

 carry by Nature's ordinary course. In other words, 

 by burning the heather and thus providing an abundance 

 of young food, we render it possible for a moor to carry 

 a far greater head of game than it could possibly carry 

 by Nature's ordinary course. 



A great deal has been written during recent years about 

 frosted heather, which in some parts of Scotland presents 

 almost as serious a problem as grouse disease. The 

 heather shrivels up and turns brown, thus dying off 

 over certain areas. Certainly it looks as though the 

 damage were caused by extreme cold, but this cannot, 

 of course, be the case, or the frosting would not be limited 



