124 GAME BIRDS AND SHOOTING-SKETCHES 



merge into one huge pack. They then leave their usual 

 haunts and search the low grounds in quest of food. Such 

 was almost universal in the winter of 1880-81, which was 

 probably one of the most severe winters for the birds ever 

 known. 



The driver of the Inverness and Balnespick Coach told 

 me that one morning, in the month of January of that 

 year, when passing over the flat near Moy Hall, he 

 encountered w T hat he estimated to be a pack of several 

 thousand birds, many of them being so benumbed with 

 the cold that they hardly had sufficient strength to move 

 out of the way of the horses' feet. The whole of the low 

 grounds, which he pointed out to me, were literally black 

 with them, and they probably constituted the w T hole stock 

 of birds from the surrounding hills. 



Under ordinary conditions, after the middle of 

 September the two sexes separate, the hens going by 

 themselves in parties of from five to seven, and the cocks 

 leading either a solitary existence or going about two or 

 three together. One of the most curious facts that strike 

 one when Grouse-driving is that, in shooting certain beats, 

 no birds but hens are killed, and a day or two afterwards 

 perhaps none but cocks. Doubtless the hens have their 

 own particular beat, which they resort to regularly if 

 undisturbed, and it does seem strange that on a particular 

 day it should be deserted and the cocks take their place. 



In the Orkneys Grouse somewhat vary in their habits 

 from those of the mainland of Scotland. AVhen the two 

 sexes separate in October the hens always become much 

 more shy than the cocks, so that a shooter in November, 

 taking a stroll with his dogs, will find that seventy or 



