RED GROUSE 229 



in 1901 there were shot 2686 grouse; and in 1902 there were 

 2898 grouse bagged. 



Mr. Wynne Corrie has improved the best season's bag at 

 Ruabon Hills by about 1000 brace, or one-third more than the 

 previous best. He has given the author four reasons to which 

 he attributes the improvement, and as his is nearly the only 

 South Country grouse moor that at once shows a great stock 

 and also a great improvement over season's bags of four decades 

 ago, they are here stated : 



1. Leaving as large a head of breeding birds as possible. 



2. Improvement of the heather. 



3. Sunk butts. 



4. Not shooting any grouse over dogs. 



Probably it will be gathered from the records of bags made 

 that the system of only driving, in Yorkshire, has not increased 

 the birds since 1872, and that dog work and driving afterwards 

 has also had the same stagnant or retarding effect in Scotland, 

 where also driving alone has made no improvement either, 

 that when it could be said of moors that they produced as 

 well as their neighbours, of similar area and conditions, under 

 previous management. This is all very disappointing to those 

 who give time and money to moor improvement, and sacrifice 

 their shooting several years in order to get up the head of game. 

 It is not pleasant to have to mention these partial failures, but 

 it is felt that if we do not look facts in the face as they are, 

 there is little chance of improvement. There is, in fact, a some- 

 thing besides disease that keeps the grouse stock below a certain 

 point in the best of years, and, as Allan Brown says, causes a 

 little grouse to require as much land to itself as a cow. 



These bags are not quoted, then, merely because they are 

 records, but because they teach that there is something never yet 

 found out that is infinitely more important to discover than the 

 bacilli of the grouse disease. It must be more potent than 

 disease in its effects of keeping the grouse stock down. For 

 their numbers from a stock-breeder's point of view seem utterly 

 absurd. That vegetable-feeding birds weighing under 2 Ibs. 

 should want as much vegetation to themselves as sheep 



