438 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



ment the pleasure and interest of well-organised shooting, that no effort should 

 be spared to secure the suitable man. 



The keeper's duties in regard to vermin, poaching, control of old heather, and 

 stock regulation are dealt with in other parts of this Report. 1 Certain general 

 rules of conduct are however worth noting. 



The first rule to be laid down is that a good gamekeeper should never 

 Principal be idle. It is a fair criticism to make that laziness is the commonest 

 game 80 fault in gamekeepers. Also that this laziness in the majority of 

 cases arises from ignorance and not from malice prepense. 



Many zealous young gamekeepers have been brought up to believe that 

 their whole duties are to burn the heather in the spring, to attend upon the 

 guns in the shooting season, and during the remainder of the year 

 there is to keep their eyes open, but on no account to disturb their ground, 

 low This belief is convenient for the idle, and had its origin no doubt 



from small shootings, where one man has charge of both Grouse 

 moor and low ground. The sequence of duties on such shootings went on 

 without a break from heather-burning to Pheasant-rearing, and from Grouse 

 shooting to covert shooting ; a sufficient round of activity to occupy the 

 keeper's time throughout the year. The arrangement was probably considered 

 satisfactory from the point of view of estate economy, even if it did not give 

 a maximum yield of Grouse. 



Where a keeper has charge of Grouse ground and Grouse ground only, a 

 higher standard should be aimed at. He must discard the old belief in an 

 Where " off season," for the " off season " should be his busy time. He 

 moor' 8 must overcome his dread of disturbing his ground even at the breed- 

 ing season, for it is then that there is most to be learned as to the 

 nesting capacity of his beat, and the means by which this nesting capacity 

 might be improved. He will not find that the hen bird will desert 



During the 3 



nesting merely because he happens to have located her nest, whereas if he 



season. 



remains at home one pair of hoodie crows may do as much harm as if 

 he had spent a day walking over the moor and putting his foot on every clutch. 2 



1 Vide pp. 445 et seq. ; chap, xviii. pp. 392 et seq. ; chap. xxi. pp. 454 et seq. 



- Many game preservers will challenge the foregoing remarks as contrary to all accepted theories ; hut 

 against theory can he put actual experience. One example only need be given : 



On a moor which has come under the Committee's observation, where the annual hag has been known to reach 

 the remarkable total of eighteen hundred brace off 2,000 acres of heather, the gamekeeper in charge by close and 

 constant attention to his duties is able to inform his employer whether it is to be an early or late nesting year, 

 whether the stock is large or small, whether the clutches are above or below the average, and how each beat 



