io6 Practical Game Preserving. 



their haunts at sunrise. Their food consists, for the most 

 part, of some of the natural vegetable products of the 

 waste lands which they frequent, and comprises chiefly the 

 following : the tender portions of the ling or heath, 

 commonly termed " heather;" of the heather proper (Erica 

 cinerea), generally called " heath;" several kinds of sedge 

 and other grasses, willows, and various descriptions of 

 mountain berries, among which may be mentioned, as the 

 most common, the whortleberry, the cranberry, the crow- 

 berry, and the red bearberry; also the shoots and leaves 

 of these according to the season. To enumerate all the 

 plants upon which grouse feed would be difficult. During 

 winter they often become, like many other birds, very short 

 of food, and when the supply is too scant on the weather- 

 beaten moors, they have recourse to the fields and stubbles 

 of farmers, and to outlying plantations. It has of late years 

 become recognised as a necessity that grouse be fed with 

 corn, &c., during severe weather, and seeing the numbers 

 of birds which some moors have to support, we cannot but 

 give the practice a hearty approval, both from a humane and 

 practical point of view. But of this we shall have occasion 

 to treat later on. 



It will be seen that though a hill be wanting in heath or 

 heather, it may still prove an attractive place for grouse to 

 feed, owing to its producing other suitable food. This bird 

 is one that alters its habits to a very inappreciable extent 

 according to the season, and unlike its more sombre con- 

 gener, will frequent precisely the same expanse of ground 

 from one Midsummer day to another, unless ousted by 

 sportsmen or other irresistible cause, and the mere shooting 



