GROUSE. 105 



poulterers shops late into every spring, and attracting atten- 

 tion by their cheapness. It goes almost without saying, they 

 cannot all be English birds. Even their purveyors would 

 hardly pretend that. Whence do they come ? The answer is, 

 from abroad; the capercailzie and ptarmigan from Norway 

 and Sweden, the blackgame largely from Russia, but the red 

 grouse undoubtedly from the northern part of our own 

 kingdom, as Tetras Scoticus is unknown elsewhere the only 

 creature in the British fauna that can lay claim to that 

 exclusiveness. Winter is a bad time for all these birds, 

 and the snow-covered ground which sharpens their hunger 

 and brings them into the snares of the poacher, also lets the 

 gunner in a worse poacher as often as not than he of the 

 nooses and nets by betraying their hiding-places and 

 showing up their crouching forms. 



In autumn the capercailzie of a district are divided into 

 packs of fifty or a hundred, the hen birds keeping separate 

 from these gatherings, which feed along the sides of the 

 numerous lakes and morasses with which the northern 

 forests abound. The Swedes shoot these noble birds by 

 torchlight. 



During the winter many capercailzie are also taken in 

 snares. Two stout sticks, some eighteen inches in length, 

 *and forked at the upper end, are driven into the ground on 

 either side of a pathway, and across these a third stick is 

 placed, from which depend as many nooses of horse hair as 

 may be convenient. The nooses are kept in place by blades 

 of grass, and should have their lower edges about three 

 inches from the ground. Over the cross-stick thick-leaved 

 pine branches are placed, with snow to cover the whole and 

 protect the nooses from the weather. 



A simple kind of net for taking capercailzie, we read in 

 L. Lloyd's " Game Birds of Norway and Sweden," is termed 

 the " kasse," and can be used at any season of the year. It 

 is about thirty inches square, and made of twisted silk with 

 meshes so large as to readily admit the head of the bird. If 



