166 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



injurious to grouse, is negatived by the experience of 

 Yorkshire, where the burning" — or, as I would rather put 

 it, the cultivation— of the heather is now carried on to an 

 extent and on systematic methods formerly unknown ; 

 yet without causing injury to the plant, while the grouse- 

 stock has been largely increased. Any straining of 

 Nature's gifts to the utmost must tend towards deteriora- 

 tion in both products, rendering them more susceptible to 

 injurious influences and less able to resist their attacks. 

 But systematic burning, carefully carried out, involves no 

 straining. 



The tastes and requirements of grouse, as regards 

 heather, do not differ from those of sheep ; and therefore 

 no conflict of interests can arise. 



Black-faced sheep are supposed to live where Cheviots 

 or any other would starve. That is (being interpreted), the 

 former can, when forced thereto by sheer necessity, retain 

 the life in them by a starvation subsistence on dried heather- 

 stalks, or by grubbing down into the roots. But that char- 

 acter in the black-faces is not spontaneous on their part — 

 far from it ; they relish young heather and sweet grass as 

 much as other breeds. But the character named is one 

 which is to-day (in parts) pushed to extremes. 



There may be flockmasters who will dispute this 

 and say that I know nothing of sheep. Quite true. 

 But anyone knows healthy and vigorous heather, and 

 can distinguish between it and those melancholy areas 

 where the plant has had the very heart eaten out of it — 

 where the once lovely moorland, instead of being clad in 

 Nature's beauteous and bountiful growth, has become 

 (to my eye) hideous in its mangy remnant of what was 

 heather, all contorted and gnawed to death. 



Such conditions may suit black-faced sheep : but if so, 



