466 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



previous years should be disregarded ; a moor which in the past has yielded 

 an average bag of five hundred brace may in a big year produce one thousand 

 five hundred brace and still be dangerously overstocked. It is the number left 

 alive, not the number killed, that should be considered. 



It will be urged by many moor-owners that it is impossible to regulate 



the Grouse stocks with any precision, owing to the migratory habits 



due to of the birds. The objection is a pertinent one, and it is this 



migration. 



migratory habit of the Grouse which has so often defeated individual 

 efforts at stock management. 



It has been pointed out in another part of the Report that in many 

 districts Grouse annually move about in large packs, often leaving the 

 high ground for weeks, or even months, at a time, and congregating on the 

 lower moors. 1 When this occurs it is obviously impossible for a moor-owner 

 to gauge the numbers of birds belonging to his ground which still survive 

 the shooting season, for he may either find that every bird has left the 

 moor, or alternatively that his own home stock is largely augmented by 

 foreign visitors. In the former case it will be impossible to reduce his stock 

 for the birds are no longer there to be shot ; in the latter case the packs are 

 usually so large that any shooting that may be possible can make but little 

 impression on the stock. The difficulty is further increased by the fact that 

 it is usually late in the autumn before the seasonal migrations of Grouse 

 occur, often after the close of the shooting season when no legitimate means 

 are available for the destruction of the birds. 



Owners have always been ready to admit the principle that there is 

 danger in leaving too large a stock, and some even go so far as to put the 

 A large principle into practice by instructing their gamekeepers to kill down 

 stocifun- *ke Grouse by systematic driving or " stocking " after the regular 

 desirable, shooting has come to an end. This practice may result in the 

 reduction of the stocks by a few hundred birds ; but is of little practical value 

 unless it be carried out on a large scale throughout a wide district. 



Various r\ -\ i 



policies Other moor-owners adopt a neutral attitude. An owner of a high- 

 lying moor will contend that he has nothing to fear from leaving 

 a large stock upon his ground since the birds will migrate in the autumn to 

 lower ground, when their numbers will be reduced either by shooting or by 

 disease, and thus the stock will be brought to reasonable dimensions before 



1 Vide chap. ii. pp. 25-26. 



