224 SHOOTING THE GROUSE 



as they raked the snow off the grouse followed them 

 close, as gulls will follow the plough, or chickens the 

 good-wife in the poultry yard, perfectly tame. 



Your keepers should see to these methods of help- 

 ing them to feed in severe weather, and not, as is too 

 often the case, helplessly gape at the half-starved 

 packs sitting on walls or scratching at the ground in 

 the fields below the moorland, until, forced by hunger, 

 they rise and fly clean away in search of milder 

 conditions. 



The same authority (Mr. Stanhope) always ex- 

 pressed himself in favour of plantations round and 

 about the edges of the moors. Though they may 

 attain no value as timber, they will prove a great pro- 

 tection to the grouse in a heavy snow. Then they will 

 be able to creep under the boughs of the stunted 

 larches or spruces, scratching and picking a bit when 

 they cannot get at food or shelter on the open moor. 

 Grouse, I believe, very rarely die of cold, excepting the 

 devoted hens, which sometimes allow themselves to 

 be frozen, or so pinched by the cold while sitting on 

 their nests that they succumb within a short time. But 

 they suffer severely from starvation in hard winters, 

 and although their moving off the ground in large 

 packs in search of food may, as Mr. Rimington Wilson 

 has observed, serve to mingle the blood and improve 



