93 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER V. 



GROUSE. 



MOOE AND MOUNTAIN FOWL IN THE THREE KINGDOMS. 



ALL the grouse family interest the sportsman more than the 

 agriculturist. Hill crofters who live amongst the grouse 

 bear no great grudge against them, though now and again 

 perhaps a brood -will come down to searoh their rocky 

 stubbles for shed corn, even pillaging to some small extent 

 the barley shocks after harvest. But the damage they do 

 is trifling at worst. Foresters complain that capercailzie 

 and blackcock eat the tender shoots of silver firs in "hard 

 times," but the complaint is not of any great weight. 

 Radical legislators, perhaps, who believe in breaking up 

 estates to instal a yeomanry on allotments, and would like 

 to see the gneiss of Ben Nevis planted with turnips, and the 

 sides of the Grampians devoted to carrot plots, may bear ill- 

 will to the whole race ; but their arguments are more trivial 

 than either of the others ! To gunsmen grouse stand at the 

 head of all our indigenous birds. They are to them what 

 the salmon is to fishermen, and the elephant and tiger to 

 Indian sportsmen. How welcome is the eve of the 12th of 

 August to those whose fortune it is to have toiled through 

 a long hot summer amongst city dust for the rest of northern 

 moors ! That night journey itself that takes us northward, 

 with all the luxury of modern travel, is, the first time we 

 make it, an experience the fascination of which never fades. 

 There is the wonderful rush through the fertile midlands, 



