102 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



With fine weather, Grouse are mostly in pairs by the 

 second half of October, or in small lots of four, six, or eight, 

 which are also composed of pairs. That this is the case is 

 most easily seen when stalking (or what is called " edging") 

 Grouse, or, better still, when " carting " to them. Then, 

 the courtship of the Grouse cock, and the coquettishness of 

 his mate are conspicuously visible — even the amantium 

 irce are observable, and very amusing. Every now 

 and then the hen Grouse dashes away, followed at 

 once by her lover, and the chase continues for minutes at 

 a time. Round hillocks, along sinuous hollows, now 

 low on the heather, then high in the air, the pursuit is 

 carried on with intense energy — the hen often dodging 

 downwards or sideways as though a falcon were in pursuit — 

 the while the low soft spring note is constantly repeated. 

 Than the old Grouse cock at this season there is no more 

 beautiful object in Nature, as he proudly stalks over the 

 short heather, with head and tail carried almost equally erect 

 (for he is most particular not to let the latter get wet with 

 the melted "rime"), his steely-sheened plumage, bright 

 scarlet comb, and chestnut throat ; only a j^ard or two 

 beyond is his speckled mate, but crouching low among 

 the heather, she is almost invisible to an unpractised eye. 



Few things have struck me as more remarkable than, 

 first, the frequent inability of a novice on the fells to dis- 

 tinguish a Grouse which is close at hand and apparently in 

 full view ; and, secondly, the extraordinary acuteness of 

 eyesight which is developed by constant practice in those 

 who live among the hills. " Well, Sir, I thought I just 

 kenned the turn of his neb," or "the red on his kame !" 

 is the reply when one asks how in the name of all that is 

 wonderful one's companion has detected a Grouse far away 

 and low among the heather. And one mentally measures 

 the distance from the original point of view with something 

 of vexation in one's feelings at what appears the utter hope- 

 lessness of ever attaining such keenness in the " visual ray." 

 Closely, however, as the plumage of the moor-game approx- 

 imates to the brown colour and broken "quality" of the 

 autumnal heather, yet there is a sheen on it, and a whole- 



