RED GROUSE 217 



or owners of moors wish, and instead of being 1200 

 pairs left to breed on 4500 acres, which is Mr. 

 Rimington Wilson's estimate for his crack moor near 

 Sheffield, the spring stock the country over does not 

 average, in the belief of the writer, more than 250 pairs on 

 every 4500 acres, and in this estimate he does not include the 

 grass hills, the floe ground, or the ptarmigan tops, or deer 

 forests. 



By the habits of the grouse the owners of moors are 

 compelled, therefore, more or less to pool their breeding 

 stocks. Nothing seems likely to overcome the difficulty 

 except a system of winter feeding in snow-time, and this is 

 much more easily discussed than accomplished. Even if oat 

 stacks with the corn in the straw, and more oats added to it 

 to avoid unnecessary carting of straw, were erected, and 

 protected in the early autumn, in various parts of a moor, 

 these to be of any use would require to be visited in the 

 very worst of the snow, in order that the protection might 

 be removed and the grouse might start to scratch about for 

 food. But there are many parts of many moors where an 

 expedition at such a time would be a work of danger, for 

 many a life has been lost in the snowstorms of the 

 Highlands. 



This digression into winter feeding of grouse arose out 

 of the question of sheep or no sheep. Difficult as this is in 

 Yorkshire, Wales, and the Lowlands of Scotland, it is very 

 much more complicated in the Highlands, where sheep have 

 to be considered not alone as an addition to grouse moors, but 

 also as a protection to the deer forests. It is necessary to 

 the forest owners that they should not lose their rentals by 

 the movements of deer to grouse ground in the stalking 

 season. 



Where one forest adjoins another, exchange is no robbery ; 

 but where they adjoin sheep ground the only two possible 

 ways of preventing a loss of deer are wire deer fences and 

 the presence of sheep and shepherds. The former is out of 

 favour, and will probably never come in again. It converts 



