OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOOD OF GROUSE 73 



of nutritive food than at any other time of the year, and it is doubtless 

 due to this cause that Grouse make such rapid growth in size and young 

 strength between the date of hatching in May, and the opening f^y'* 

 of the shooting season some ten or twelve weeks later. 



It is in the month of May also that the young heather plants first begin 

 to appear on the black ground, where the old heather has been burned. The 

 length of time that elapses between the date of burning and the 

 growth of the new heather varies. If the roots are not too old, and young 



plants. 



have not been destroyed by the fire, the new growth will spring 

 from them within a year ; on some ground this always occurs. If, however, 

 the roots have been burnt out, or are too old to send forth new shoots, the 

 ground must lie waste for years, until a fresh growth of heather springs from 

 wind-blown seed or from the seed lying dormant in the soil or blown on to it. 1 



It is usual to suppose that the first shoots of the young heather as they 

 appear above the ground are greedily eaten by Grouse. Observation has 

 shown that this view is not strictly correct, for the adult birds will 



* Adult 



never feed on the immature plant so long as they can find plenty Grouse do 

 of close-growing heather of the type described on p. 72. This is seedling 



3 * heather. 



fortunate, for otherwise the first growth might be very severely checked 



on a moor carrying a heavy stock of birds. Sheep, on the other hand, are 



very fond of the tender young shoots, and are often most destructive 



to seedlings which have not had time to secure a firm roothold. 



While the adult Grouse does not eat the very young heather, there is no 

 doubt that the chicks prefer it to the shoots of the more mature 

 plant ; but the amount eaten by them in the days of their infancy Grouse 

 is so small that they cannot make any material impression on the 

 growth of the plant. 



In June there is a continuance of the favourable conditions which com- 

 menced in May. It will be seen by reference to Table III. that in this 

 month the consumption of fresh green shoots of heather rises to Heather in 

 82 per cent., while that of brown winter heather drops to zero. June- 



In July the consumption of heather drops to its lowest for the year 

 only 53 per cent. ; this is doubtless partly due to the ripening of 

 blaeberries which occurs in this month. The consumption of blaeberry 

 stalks and leaves has risen to 20 per cent., while the quantity of berries eaten is 



1 Vide chap, xviii. p. 400. 



