GROUSE THAT LIE AND GROUSE THAT FLY 205 



east to south-west parallels. Probably neither of them are for 

 the most part high enough to suit grouse in that latitude and 

 longitude. It must be remembered that if red grouse are, as 

 is believed to be the case, the same bird as the willow grouse, or 

 rype, they are of Arctic origin, and, like other organisms of that 

 origin, survive out of the Arctic regions only at certain 

 higher altitudes as latitude decreases. The lower Dartmoor 

 is obviously too low for them, but possibly places could be 

 discovered on the moor where they would do well. The 

 lower moors there are smothered with the bell heather (erica), 

 and this is not the food of the grouse. The real " ling " (calluna) 

 of the grouse food grows on Dartmoor much more scarcely, 

 and although there is plenty for old grouse, it is not easy 

 to see how chicks could get about to find enough of their 

 natural food amongst what, to them, would be forests of 

 useless vegetation namely, the bell heather. On the South 

 Wales moors the grouse are not very plentiful ; but the species 

 is better served in North Wales, which is on the same north- 

 east by south-west parallel line as Yorkshire. 



It is a curious fact that these parallels also supply an index 

 to the wildness or otherwise of the grouse, but not exactly. 

 It would be more nearly correct to say that this is true 

 except so far as it is modified by insular conditions. What 

 is meant is that the parallel lines hold good except as regard 

 the islands where the grouse lie better than their north- 

 westwardness would suggest from the behaviour of the grouse 

 in the same parallels on the mainland. 



It has been said that the wet climate makes birds lie : 

 this is obviously wrong, because they do so in Caithness, 

 which is the dryest county in Scotland by the statistics. 



It has also lately been repeatedly said that the Gulf Stream 

 makes them lie, but this also is surely wrong, because the one 

 part most affected by the Gulf Stream is the Port Patrick 

 promontory in Wigtonshire, where the author has found the 

 grouse as wild as in Aberdeenshire. Yet in Arran and in Islay, 

 but slightly to the north-west of this point, they lie like stones 

 all the year. They do so also on the west coast of Argyllshire, 



