178 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



thinking the Blackgame have a good share in driving off the Grouse, as I 

 know of one instance where the former were killed off, and the latter again 

 returned to their old haunts. I believe it is also more than suspected 

 that the Capercailzie, wherever they are introduced, have a great inclination 

 to dispossess both."^ 



The conditions have altered much since this was written. Large tracts 

 of Blackgame country have been drained and put under cultivation ; and 

 Capercailzie have in many places again become abundant after a temporary 

 extinction. Planting has become much more general, and the presence of young 

 larches often determines the movements of large numbers of Blackgame. 



Corn feeding is a habit which has become general amongst Grouse and 

 Blackgame wherever the lie of the laud permits, or the condition of a moor 

 Corn feed- facilitates it. It is often mentioned as an accompaniment, or a cause, 

 '"g- or a forerunner, or a consequence, of " Grouse Disease." The opinion 



of gamekeepers on the subject is about equally divided ; some say that it does 

 the birds more good than harm, and others say exactly the reverse. Some 

 again say that it does them neither good nor harm, and others that it is a sure 

 precursor of disease. Occasionally yet another suggestion is made which 

 appears on the whole to meet a certain proportion of cases, namely, that in certain 

 districts the weaklings alone are to be found upon the stooks and stubbles, 

 or, in other words, that corn feeding is a consequence of sickness, not a cause. 

 Generally speaking, in districts where large packs habitually come upon the 

 stubbles, it is probabl)^ because they have insufficient food upon the moors. 

 Grouse when feeding on the stooks are generally not only healthy but 

 wild, until they have filled themselves with corn, when their habitual 

 weariness often seems to leave them. This has long been recognised, and in 

 Adam's " Reminiscences," for example, we find the statement that " Grouse, when 

 they get on the plough are sometimes very stupid." ' A case in point occurs in 

 the extraordinary series of deaths from collision in Blackgame which has been 

 described above.^ Something connected with the corn upon which the birds 

 were feeding seems to have been the cause of their incapacity. Corn feeding 

 then is customary with healthy Grouse on some moors much more than on 

 others ; but the evidence seems to show that when sick birds appear ou the 

 cornfields they are there because they are sick — not that they become sick as 



'.lohu Colquhoun, "Moor and Loch," p. 202, note. 

 '■* Adam, "Reminiscences," p. 25. ^ Vide -py). \bSi et seq. 



