BIRD-LIFE ON THE MOORS IN SEPTEMBER. 85 



fouud ill the presence of some food or other natural feature 

 in the selected spot, unknown to us, but which is wanting 

 elsewhere. Tliis capriciousness is most conspicuous at the 

 stubbles, which being few, would each, one would im- 

 agine, prove attractive to a fair quantity of game. But 

 it is not so ; perhaps one little patch is daily resorted to by 

 a large pack, while another, to all appearances equally 

 attractive, is invariably found blank. As the conditions 

 change with the annual rotation of crops, the neglected 

 field of one year may become the favoured resort of the 

 next ; so that each season the problem of their exact haunts 

 has to be solved afresh, which adds to the pleasure of 

 sport. The same rule also holds good to some extent on the 

 moors above, where the burning of the old heather, and the 

 ever varying growth of the new, each year alters the face of the 

 hills, and consequently the haunts and habits of the Grouse. 



Corn not being a natural food to Grouse, they only acquire 

 a taste for it by its close proximity to their heathery domains. 

 On ground where the few stubbles were far below the lowest 

 levels of the heather, I never saw Grouse come 'down to the 

 corn ; their education was not advanced to that point ; but 

 in Weardale and elsewhere, where corn and heather adjoin, 

 or even overlap, the Grouse, under certain conditions, learn 

 to come pretty constantly to the stubbles at night. 



Partridge in the hill-country, being much scarcer than in 

 the corn-lands, are far more shifty in their habits, and 

 bolder in their flights. They often roost a mile, or even 

 two miles, from their basks and feeding grounds, and when 

 put up, fly a great distance over the rough grass and 

 bare open hill-sides ; whereas, in a corn-country with its 

 numerous hedges to hide their course, they seldom go more 

 than a field or two. The difficulty, therefore, of finding 

 again the fell-partridge in a wide uninclosed country is 

 much greater, and the sport proportionately more enjoyable 

 than among the everlasting root- crops — that is as sport, for, 

 as regards shooting alone, the latter country is many-fold 

 more prolific of results. 



It is curious, when one considers the immense number of 

 game-birds which are shot every season, how seldom they 



