2i8 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



forests into parks, and park deer have no sporting value. 

 Consequently, only the sheep and the shepherds are left. 

 To remove them anywhere in the neighbourhood of forests 

 is automatically to stock the ground with deer. This may 

 be a wise or an unwise policy as circumstances arise, but it 

 is very bad for the established forests to lose their best beasts, 

 which take years to grow. Then to have deer forests inter- 

 spersed through the more cultivated districts of the Highlands 

 would probably lead to a revolution, or at least to the 

 unauthorised destruction of the deer when they attacked the 

 farmers' crops. 



The burning of the heather is rarely done half well enough. 

 It is very expensive in districts far removed from considerable 

 population. There is so much delay caused by waiting for the 

 weather. The ideal conditions are wet ground and dry air and 

 heather, in order that the tops of the plant shall be thoroughly 

 burned and the roots and the heather seed in the ground not 

 much heated. But to wait for such ideal conditions would be 

 rarely to burn at all, and consequently risks are taken, but 

 even as it is, not nearly enough heather is burned. On some 

 moors the author has visited he could say there were 

 IOOO acres of heather and that one match would destroy 

 it all. Where such enormous beds of old heather do exist, it 

 might be bolder than wise to apply that match and leave the 

 rest to chance. But it always runs this risk even when grouse 

 are sitting on their eggs. There are not many nests in such 

 ground, nevertheless it is a pity to destroy it all, for this old 

 heather is the most valuable when snow is on the moor, but 

 the mere fact of burning strips through it greatly increases 

 this value as well as every other. It assists the snow to drift, 

 which in covering some parts deeply leaves the other bare. 

 Shelter and food is what the grouse most want in the storm, 

 and the very long heather supplies both to a very great 

 extent. But a very little of it will go a long way for this 

 purpose. The grouse never eat it at other times, so that it 

 is all left for winter feeding. These long old heather patches 

 may also have a value in collecting grouse on driving days, 



