GROUSE AND BLACK-GAME SHOOTING. 79 



The experienced grouse-shooter well knows how little it 

 will avail him to attempt to find out the best part of a moor 

 with which he is unacquainted, by a distant coup-d'ceil, or by 

 theory, however plausible. On the same range the packs will 

 be strongest and most numerous one year on the top of the 

 hill, another on the brow, and a third on the flat at the foot, 

 and this often without any assignable reason. A man who 

 chooses his range by rule will be as likely to fix on the worst 

 as the best. The only plan, supposing he has neglected to 

 make himself acquainted with the ground before the 12th of 

 August, is to find out from the shepherds where the packs are 

 most plentiful, and concert measures accordingly. It often 

 happens that, if the hatching -time is very rainy, the best 

 packs may be found on the brow of a hill, from being less 

 exposed to the wet ; and in a dry sultry season the best places 

 to range are the flats between the hills, or even the tops, if 

 dotted with " peat-hags." * The very reverse, however, may 

 be the case if there are few mossy springs or peat-hags on the 

 flat or top, and if the hillside is supplied with water for the 



a part of my moor where the birds were very scarce, I got a point, and after kill- 

 ing a brace was proceeding to pick them up, when the young pack rose, five in 

 number, as decided " squeakers " as ever struck remorse into the callous heart of 

 the shooter. I at once determined to ascertain whether poults left in so unpro- 

 tected a state must die. So, after ranging the ground most carefully for a con- 

 siderable distance, to be certain there was no other pack near, I left them undis- 

 turbed for eight days. At the end of that time I found and shot two of them, 

 not at all fallen off in condition, and quite large enough to count in the day's 

 return of the slain. These poults were not in company, but at a little distance 

 from each other. It therefore appears to me that their great danger is from 

 vermin, missing the warning cry of the old birds when an enemy approaches. 

 There can be no doubt of its being both cruel and destructive to the young 

 brood to murder their protectors ; but should the sportsman unfortunately do 

 so, and not discover his mistake till too late, he had better give them the chance 

 of escaping vermin than shoot them out of humanity, erroneously supposing that 

 they cannot but die of starvation. 



1 Places where peats have been " cast " or dug out, in which the moss- water 

 collects, and affords drink to the grouse. Sometimes these "hags" are formed 

 by natural rifts in the bog, with a small red brook running through. This water 

 is very unwholesome, and a man had better bear his thirst than drink it. The 

 peat-stack is a sure index of these supplies of water, and can be seen at a con- 

 siderable distance. 



