GROUSE. 103 



shires, turned out to be the warmest supporters of game- 

 rearing and preserving when examined before the Game 

 Laws Committee of the House of Parliament. It is the 

 orators of Manchester allies and politicians of the salubrious 

 slums of Chelsea who object on principle to property in fur 

 or feather. 



The rents of shootings are far too high. This is, of 

 course, the result of keen competition. Worse still, the com- 

 petition extends itself into the actual shooting, and when an. 

 agent stretches a point and says, such and such an estate 

 ought to produce five hundred brace of grouse, the owner for 

 the time naturally likes to get his thousand birds, and 

 grumbles if he doesn't. A more fatherly interest is what 

 we want for our northern shootings, and less, far less 

 driving at the very end of the season. Mr. Archibald Stuart- 

 Wortley very justly remarks it is not only outside warm 

 corners of Suffolk coverts that " bird butcheries " take place, 

 they are known sometimes on the far side of the Tweed 

 when hot autumn days make the grouse lie in the bents 

 like quail nnder a hedge, and the breechloaders mow them 

 down at half distance remorselessly. I do not agree with 

 Mr. Stuart-Wortley in his opinion that Scotch moors can 

 never again carry such a head of game as they have done ; 

 though agreeing with him that during the last five years 

 they have been shot, "not wisely, but too well," with too 

 much science, and too skilfully for " the pot," or worse 

 still in some instances, " for the poulterer ! " 



Everywhere firs and spruces are being planted along the 

 straths, and this should tend to the increase of that noble 

 bird the capercailzie, who is rapidly regaining his position 

 amongst the lochs and corries. A like cause should tend to 

 the multiplication of blackgame, who love the openings in 

 these plantations and the hollows overgrown with cotton 

 grass and willow. As recorded by Mr. E. Harting and 

 others in the Field, many attempts have been made to intro- 

 duce the blackcock into Ireland by the importation of living 



