12 NATURAL HISJ^ORY OF THE GROUSE 



or the gloomy grandeur of the fiords of Western Nor- 

 way. The grouse is pre-eminently bound up with our 

 happiest memories of home scenery. Of course, the 

 wealthy men among us can go to Spitzbergen and 

 enjoy good sport with a form of ptarmigan which Mr. 

 Abel Chapman considers to be almost identical with 

 the red grouse ; or they may visit Northern Europe 

 and kill willow grouse to their heart's content ; but 

 the grouse holds a unique position in the affections of 

 most British sportsmen ; all the more, perhaps, since 

 it is essentially an insular production, and cannot be 

 met with out of Great Britain and Ireland, except, 

 indeed, under certain artificial conditions. 



I do not know anything of Irish moors at first 

 hand, never having visited Ireland ; but the north of 

 England affords as fine a race of grouse as can be 

 found anywhere in the Northern kingdom. The Pen- 

 nine range, especially, with its infinite number of out- 

 lying spurs, affords an enormous area for grouse to 

 range over, and possesses the advantage of being 

 near to the metropolis. Many quiet nooks of exquisite 

 beauty are to be found among the grouse moors of 

 Yorkshire and of Westmoreland. Farther south, the 

 grouse manages to exist in close proximity to some of 

 the grimy manufacturing towns of Lancashire. The 

 account of the habits of the red grouse furnished 



