36 GMIE PEESERVERS AND BIRD PRESERVERS. 



keeping grouse in health than handing them 

 over, through the length and breadth of bonny 

 Scotland, to the cruel surgical operations which 

 Dr. Falco Peregrinus is only too anxious to 

 perform on them all the year round. 



Yet grouse do constantly pass through an 

 ordeal which none but those blessed with the 

 very strongest constitutions can stand. They 

 are reared at a height above the level of the 

 sea, and often in weather through which no other 

 young game birds (except, of course, their first 

 cousin the ptarmigan) could live. When the 

 pelting, pitiless rain sets in, and the thermo- 

 meter falls almost to freezing-point, then it is 

 that the weakly chicks die. Those which 

 survive are those possessing most vital energy, 

 and these are often scarcely half the brood. 



Were an old cock grouse with a consti- 

 tution shattered by many wounds, almost as 

 full of spent shot as a pudding is of currants, 

 to pair with an interesting young hen who had 

 suffered from chronic hver complaint all her 



