196 BIEDS. 



In Hoy, birds with one or both wings white have been shot 

 by Mr. Moodie-Heddle, and on one occasion one that had three 

 legs. A Grouse with both wings white was shot by him in 

 1866, and another with only one white wing about 1883. 



We noticed that in Kousay Grouse are remarkably silent 

 birds, a crow being rarely heard, even in the breeding season, 

 but this does not hold good in Hoy, as Mr. Moodie-Heddle 

 informs us. 



As long as the crowberry is to be found, Grouse feed on 

 them much more than on the heather, and this is apparent not 

 only by their droppings, which at that season are soft, and 

 coloured by the juice of the berries, but by their whiter and 

 tasteless flesh, so different from that of a pure heather-fed bird, 

 and which makes a Grouse the prince of feathered game. 



In Rousay, Grouse were observed to come to the stubbles 

 during stormy weather in October and November in the early 

 morning and late evening, retiring to the nearest heather during 

 the day ; they lie well to dogs, if the weather be fine, to the 

 end of the season. 



Mr. Ranken relates a curious instance of the closeness with 

 which a hen Grouse sits on her eggs. He says : "I once put 

 my heel on the head of a hen Grouse, and so accidentally killed 

 her, when I was walking over the heather ; she was sitting on 

 seven eggs. Not till I heard a flutter behind me was I aware of 

 what had happened, and, on turning round, I saw the bird 

 tumbling about, a yard or two off." 



Mr. Gold, Lord Zetland's factor in Orkney, who has had as 

 great an experience of sport in these islands as any man, 

 says that Grouse are dying out from over-burning, and burning 

 at all seasons, as well as from being systematically over-shot. 

 In Flotta Mr. Gold once killed nineteen brace in one day in 

 August; later on in the season many birds come over there 

 from N. Walls ; they are only stray visitors to S. Walls. 



We can well indorse Mr. Gold's statement of over-burning. 

 This year (1888), besides other small fires after the season was 

 over for moor-burning, we saw one in the parish of Firth, on 

 the Mainland, which was burning from Friday, June 29th, to 

 Sunday, July 1st ; this must of necessity have done immense 



