GROUSE-BECKING 79 



their crops become distended with food. In the 

 morning hours they like to sun themselves in dry 

 moss or on an open slab of rock, each bird resting 

 with one wing expanded like a fowl. As for the ways 

 of disposing of poached grouse, they are manifold. 

 Sometimes they are hawked about the country by 

 persons selling peat. Often they are taken to market 

 with other produce. The railways and parcel post 

 both offer excellent facilities for furthering the distri- 

 bution of the birds. Personally, I was once favoured 

 with a fine red grouse in rather an unexpected fashion. 

 Our keeper happened to shoot an Iceland gull, and 

 wrote to inform me that he despatched the bird to 

 me by that day's parcel post. His letter came, but 

 no gull appeared, and I therefore begged* the Post 

 Office authorities to make a search for the lost bird. 

 The gull arrived eventually by rail. Meantime the 

 postal authorities had taken counsel, and finding that 

 a grouse without a label had come into their posses- 

 sion, they forwarded to me the moor-fowl, plucked 

 and roasted as it was, with a polite intimation that 

 they conjectured that this, being evidently a bird of 

 some description, might probably prove to be the 

 Iceland gull that had gone astray. 



