232 SHOOTING THE GROUSE 



both Scotland and England. What are we to think of 

 those moors, which have been let to a variety of 

 tenants for twenty years, and where nothing but the 

 old-fashioned system of exclusive 'dogging' in the 

 early part of the season has ever been practised, which 

 are almost annually reported as having suffered 

 severely from disease, and have produced gradually 

 declining results ? Is it too much to agree with autho- 

 rities such as I have quoted, and to come to the con- 

 clusion that other causes besides disease have been at 

 work on these unfortunate moors ? I think not ; and 

 it will take a great deal to convince me that good 

 grouse ground can deteriorate to this extent for no 

 visible cause except the eternal cry of ' disease.' The 

 birds on ill-preserved ground are never good spe- 

 cimens of the race. A deer-forest grouse is not, 

 as a rule, to be compared, for weight, plumage, 

 or flavour to one from Studley or Wemmergill. If 

 the Scotch keeper on such ground does not learn by 

 more direct channels, he will eventually discover by 

 the depreciated value of the moor which he manages 

 that he or his predecessors have killed the grouse with 

 the golden eggs. A pound a brace or even more has 

 been, and is still, paid by the unwary who rent certain 

 Scotch shootings ; but a Yorkshire moor which yields 

 3,000 brace, though very scarce in the market, will 



