RED GROUSE 215 



been able to arrive at any very definite conclusion in regard 

 to the negative or positive value of the presence of sheep 

 themselves, the evidence is so very conflicting. On the Ruabon 

 Hills there are 5000 sheep on the 7000 acres of the 

 most productive grouse ground in Wales ; moreover, there 

 are 70 commoners who each have a few dogs, and the latter's 

 business is to keep the sheep off the cultivated fields, either 

 in the presence of their masters or not, as convenience and 

 occasion serves. Then, on Mr. Lloyd Price's bigger moor 

 of Rhiwlas, the sheep have been reduced to a minimum, 

 and belong to the keeper. Yet here 1000 brace has been 

 about the best of the bags, but they have been improving. 

 Now, if these two moors grew heather of equal merit, and if 

 they were at equal elevations, we could say at once that sheep 

 are valuable to grouse. But these things are very different 

 on those two moors, and we can say nothing, but merely 

 record the facts. Again, in Yorkshire the fashion has been to 

 decrease the sheep to disappearing point ; but when Lord 

 Walsingham made his great personal bag of 1070 grouse 

 in the day on a 2200 acre moor, there were 1400 sheep 

 upon it, and there were nearly 2000 grouse killed there in 

 that season. Even now, in Yorkshire, Askrigg is about as 

 productive, acre for acre, as any moor, and it is common land, 

 and fairly swarms with sheep. On the other hand, this is 

 not true of Broomhead, where a grouse and a half to the acre 

 have been got before now, but it was true of practically all the 

 moors where great bags were made in 1871 and 1872 and 

 before. And as the general grouse stock has never again 

 reached the level of those years, it may be that there is some 

 value in sheep that has not been discovered, and to which we 

 cannot give a name. Some people believe that the sheep help 

 the grouse in winter, by uncovering the heather when it is snow- 

 buried. Probably there is a good deal to be said for that, but 

 more upon high ground than low moors, because of course the 

 object is to keep the grouse at home, and prevent them from 

 migrating down the straths in those large packs that may or 

 may not return again. On the lowest moors in the district it 



