CHAP, m.] SNARING GROUSE. 31 



one mallard, a snipe, a woodcock, two teal, and two hares ; and 

 right glad was I to ease my shoulder of that portion of the game 

 which I carried to help Donald, who would at any time have 

 preferred assisting me to stalk a red deer than to kill and carry 

 grouse. Although my day's sport did not amount to any great 

 number, the variety of game, and the beautiful and wild scenery 

 I had passed through, made me enjoy it more than if I had been 

 shooting in the best and easiest muir in Scotland, and killing 

 fifty or sixty brace of birds. 



In preserving and increasing a stock of grouse, the first thing 

 is to kill the vermin of every kind, and none more carefully than 

 the grey crows, as these keen-sighted birds destroy an immense 

 number of eggs. The grouse should also be well watched in the 

 neighbourhood of any small farms or corn-fields that may be on 

 the ground, as incredible numbers are caught in horsehair snares 

 on the sheaves of corn. A system of netting grouse has been 

 practised by some of the poachers lately, and when the birds are 

 not wild they catch great numbers in this manner ; and as in nine 

 cases out of ten the shepherds are in the habit of assisting and 

 harbouring the poachers, as well as allowing their dogs to destroy 

 as many eggs and young birds as they like, these men require 

 as much watching as possible. I have generally found it entirely 

 useless to believe a word that, they tell me respecting the 

 encroachments of poachers, even if they do not poach them- 

 selves. With a clever sheep-dog and a stick I would engage 

 to kill three parts of every covey of young grouse which I found 

 in July and the first part of August ; and, in fact, the shepherds 

 generally do kill great numbers in this noiseless and destructive 

 manner. As the black game for the most part breed in planta- 

 tions, where sheep and shepherds have no business to be found, 

 they are less likely to be killed in this way. But the young ones, 

 till nearly full grown, lie so close, that it is quite easy to catch 

 half the brood. 



When able to run, the old hen leads them to the vicinity of 

 some wet and mossy place in or near the woodlands, where the 

 seeds of the coarse grass and of other plants, and the insects that 

 abound near the water, afford the young birds plenty of food. 

 The hen takes great care of her young, fluttering near any in- 



