AUG. GROUSE -SHOOTINGS AND GROUSE. 275 



high or a higher rent than the sheep pasturage; for 

 it can scarcely be expected that Englishmen will 

 continue paying at the rate they do for the right of 

 shooting over tracts of ground where the grouse are 

 becoming almost extinct, as is the case in several 

 places. Instead of sparing the birds where they 

 are attacked by this epidemic, I should be much 

 more inclined to shoot down every grouse in the 

 infected part of the hills ; and I would continue to 

 do this as long as any appearance of the disease 

 remained. I would then give them a year or two 

 of rest, according to the numbers and appearance 

 of the birds. This seems to me the most likely 

 way to check the destruction caused by what the 

 keepers call the " grouse disease." In some parts 

 of the Highlands there were scarcely any young 

 birds seen in August, and the old grouse were 

 picked up in dozens, dead on the heather. 



I observed one peculiarity in the habits of the 

 grouse in 1847, which was new to me. They were 

 collected in large flocks on the 12th of August in 

 the fields of oats in the elevated districts, which 

 were at that time perfectly unripe and green. In 

 every field near the moors there were large flocks 

 of the old birds busy in the midst of the corn ; but 

 they always took -the precaution to leave some sen- 

 tries outside, who, perched on a piece of rock or an 



