CARTING TO MOORGAME. 119 



scrupulous, is a serious drawback to the use of the cart by 

 pot-hunters, who on the same principle would blow up a hare 

 on her seat, or pheasants running forward on a drive. 



Perhaps the greatest charm of this branch of moorland 

 sport, is the frequent opportunity it affords of observing 

 various wild birds close at hand and yet unconcerned. It is 

 seldom indeed that one can enter so completely, as it were, 

 into the privacy and domestic life of wild creatures. In 

 August > one only sees the Grouse spring from their heathery 

 refuge and spin away in fright ; and on a drive the 

 acquaintance is even shorter. Swish ! and they are gone 

 a string of brown crescents dipping over the ridge. But 

 alongside a cart it is different perhaps only in punt-gunning 

 can such chances be enjoyed of deliberately watching, close 

 at hand, the ways and customs, the postures and contour of 

 creatures to whom the human presence is anathema. In 

 the one case they are careless, in the other unconscious of 

 the hated presence. In both pursuits it is not too much to 

 say that to any one who, like the author, has a love of natural 

 observation as keen as the love of sport, the pleasure is 

 doubled, or trebled. On a fine dry day, as one draws near, 

 some of the Grouse will be observed to be lying down, bask- 

 ing in the sunshine, and in various postures one perhaps 

 resting on his side with one wing and one leg fully extended ; 

 others slowly loiter about the black ground, picking up odd 

 bits of gravel to aid digestion, or a grass seed, by way ot 

 pastime. They do not trouble the heather during the day, 

 for Grouse only feed in earnest once a day that is towards 

 evening. Then one observes little amatory skirmishes and re- 

 conciliations this even as early as October, a phase in Grouse 

 life to which I have referred elsewhere. (See pp. 91 and 102). 

 If the ground is wet with rain overnight, the Grouse avoid 

 long heather or grass, seeking the barest places, where the 

 old cock walks about with his tail carried nearly as high as 

 his head to keep it dry. During rain they will be found 

 huddled up into round balls of feathers, sitting on wall-tops, 

 on stones, or any slight elevation where they can keep their 

 feet dry. On such days, as a rule, they are utterly silent, 

 whereas on a fine frosty morning the moor rings with their 



