136 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



or on thistles, and busily feeding on their seeds when every- 

 thing is deeply buried in snow. 



The Moor Partridge, a local race, varying from the 

 ordinary bird in its slightly smaller size, and in some 

 differences in the disposition of the colouring on the head 

 and neck (having also, I consider, a more delicate flavour), 

 fares very hardly during long-protracted storms. They 

 endeavour to eke out a subsistence where the snow is soft or 

 shallow, or where a strong-flowing spring has cleared a 

 patch of green grass ; but if the snow continues, they 

 become miserably thin, and a long winter on the hills would 

 almost kill them out, but for human assistance. 



Partridges differ from Grouse in never becoming really 

 wild, providing there is sufficient covert. Wildness in 

 Partridges appears to be solely a matter of want of covert. 

 In the moorland districts, where there is plenty of rough 

 grass, &c., at all seasons, they can be "broken " and shot 

 over dogs in December and January, almost as certainly as 

 in September. That is, they can, under favourable con- 

 ditions, be got to lie nearly as closely ; but their speed of 

 wing and *' dash " in getting away is now very much greater. 

 I speak, of course, only of shooting in open weather, for in 

 snow no one should molest the little brown birds. 



When, after a hard climb, one reaches the fell tops, it 

 might be thought an easy matter to find the Grouse on the 

 level snow, where the smallest object can be seen at a great 

 distance, and often magnified by the rarefaction of the air 

 till a Snow-Bunting looms as large as a Blackcock. But it 

 sometimes happens that one scans for miles the wide expanse 

 of glistening snow till one's eyes ache with the brilliant 

 monotony of the millions of sparkling crystals — but without 

 seeing a single bird. The reason of this is that, in such 

 cases, the Grouse are deeply buried under the snow, as one 

 presently finds on coming across a perfect network of burrows 

 where a pack has been resting. These burrows are often 

 two or three feet deep, sloping downwards, like rabbit-holes. 

 A favourite resort for these sub-niveal operations is a steep 

 bank where the heather is old and long, and where its stalks 

 keep the snow loose underneath. In such places a sentry is 



