26 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



when the whole Grouse population of a district, driven by hunger, rises in huge 

 packs and works its way southward in search of food ; this never happens 

 Wholesale un ^ ess a heavy undrifted snowfall has been followed by a hard frost, 

 migration. wnere by a whole district is covered with an impenetrable sheet of frozen 

 snow, thus cutting off all access to the heather. Such wholesale migrations 

 often result in a complete loss of the stock, for the birds appear to lose their 

 bearings, and though they may sometimes find a haven on some distant moor, 

 where weather conditions are more propitious, several cases have been recorded 

 of the packs being seen on the low ground 20 or 30 miles from the 

 nearest hill, or even flying out to sea, whence presumably they never return. 



In the case of normal annual migrations many opportunities have 

 fl' 0% ht rS f f occurre d for observing the power of flight of the Grouse. The follow- 

 Grouse. j n g passage may be quoted from Macpherson in the Fur and 

 Feather Series : l 



" When snow and sleet have driven them down from the hills they will then 

 fly long distances. It is not at all unusual for Red Grouse to cross the Solway 

 Firth at a point where the estuary measures two miles in breadth, and I have 

 known them fly longer distances. They often cross the valley of the Tees, flying 

 about a mile from one hillside to another." And he quotes Millais, who 

 says : "I have twice seen Grouse on the wing when they were crossing the 

 ' Bring,' a wide channel which separates the islands of Hoy and Pomona, 

 Orkneys. The fishermen told me this distance . . . was quite four miles 

 across, and the birds must have come at least another mile on the Pomona 

 side from the point where they left the moor." : In Millais' "Game Birds" 

 it is stated that Grouse have been observed flying from Thurso to Hoy, 

 a distance of over 11 miles. 3 The following instances are vouched for by 

 the Committee's own correspondents. A gentleman in Banffshire, writing 

 in January 1907, says: "Packs of Grouse are continually flying across the 

 valley during stormy weather, some 5 or 6 miles between moors " ; while 

 in Cumnock, in Ayrshire, there are "two ranges of hills divided by a valley 

 about 2 miles wide, with a moss lying in between. In the pairing season 

 Grouse often fly at a considerable height over the valley between the hills." 

 Even during a Grouse drive a pack has been observed to leave the hill where 

 it had been flushed, and not to rest until it had reached another moor 6 miles 



1 Fur and Feather Series, "The Grouse," p. 36. 



2 Millais, " Game Birds and Shooting Sketches," p. 53. London : Henry Sotheran & Co., 1892. 



3 Millais, "Natural History of British Game Birds," p. 54. London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1909. 



