GROUSE: THE HEATHER BIRD. 



and dwell upon them. Take plenty of time. That is 

 the true way to enjoy a game bird." 



The love of the Professor, as portrayed in Noctes, 

 for the royal sport is well known, a love not wholly 

 shared in by the more poetic and sensitive Shepherd, 

 who thus addressed some unfortunate victims of the 

 Professor's skill with the rifle: "The bonny gray 

 hens. I could kneel down on the floor and kiss ye, 

 and gather ye up in my airms and press ye to my 

 heart till the feel o' your feathers filled my veins wi' 

 love and pity, and I grat to think that never mair 

 would the hill fairies welcome the gleam o' your 

 plumage risin' up in the morning licht amang the 

 green plots on the sloping sward that, dipping down 

 into the valley, retains here and there, as though 

 loth to lose them, a few small stray sprinklings of the 

 Heather bells." 



The Gaelic term for the male bird is Coileach- 

 fraoch, i. e., heather cock; and for the female Cearc- 

 fraoch, i. e., heather hen. 



The cry of the grouse sounds like the words, 

 "go, go, go, go back, go-o back!" But Mr. McGill- 

 wray (British Birds, I., p. 181) says "that the Celts, 

 naturally imagining the moor-cock to speak Gaelic, 

 interpret it as signifying, "co, co, co, co, mo-chlaidh, 

 mo-chlaidh !" i. e., "Who, who, who, who (goes 

 there?), my sword, my sword!" 



Mr. Campbell, in his "West Highland Tales" 

 (I., p. 227), explains it thus: "This is what the hen 

 says : 'Faic thus a'm la udVn la ud eile.' And the 

 cock, with his deeper voice, replies : 'Faic thus a'n 

 cnoc ud s'n cnoc ud eile.' 'See thou yonder day, and 



