AUTUMN ON THE MOORS 237 



completely carried away his crop (which at that time 

 would have been full of heather). This poor bird had 

 been hungry this morning": for, oblivious of having- no 

 crop, he had been feeding-, the throat down to that ghastly 

 gash, being crammed with heather-shoots. The fourth 

 grouse had been injured some time before. He also had 

 received a terrible gash across the breast, which was bare 

 of feathers, the old skin hard and yellow, with a mass of 

 clotted blood remaining* in the cut." I could quote many 

 similar instances, including not only grouse, but all the 

 other moorland birds. There survives a spice of smug 

 hypocrisy about us still ; we fine a man for overwork- 

 ing- a horse (on which perhaps depends his daily bread), 

 another for shooting- a wild-goose in March (no harm in 

 that) — yet we allow this abomination to go on, inflicting- 

 cruelties day by day. True, these are not much seen ; 

 they occur among remote hills, where the only witnesses 

 are shepherds. 



Another danger, peculiar to the moorland, arises from 

 the quantity of sheeps' wool caught up on heather or bent. 

 A sing-le strand gets twisted round the leg- of a young- 

 bird — chiefly plovers, peewits, and snipe ; as the leg" grows 

 the wool cuts in, circulation stops, and the limb is lost. 

 I have a note that of six peewits shot one evening- by a 

 schoolboy, no less than three were thus affected, two 

 having- already lost a leg" ; while in a third the constrictive 

 amputation was in progress. At Houxty, I have shot two 

 snipes in a day similarly afflicted. 



Peewits in October are preparing- to leave the moor- 

 land. In mild, wet seasons, they are still abundant, 

 feeding- (by nig-ht) on bare black ground, where the heather 

 has been burnt ; but the first severe frost or snow at once 

 drives them off the hills. 



