92 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



may lie tolerably well at first, yet even then they are sure to 

 rise very high, and take a long flight, generally quite beyond 

 your beat : they are sometimes found singly ; at others, in 

 small flocks from six to ten. Their food on the moor consists 

 of cranberries ; another berry, found in mossy places, called 

 in Scotland the " crawberry " ; and the seed of the rush 

 before-named. 1 They, being very strong on the wing, have 

 not the same reason as the young packs for keeping near 

 their food, and are often found far from it, especially in the 

 heat of the day, shelter from the sun being their chief object. 

 There can then be no better place to beat for them than 

 among thick crops of bracken. Should you find them in such 

 good cover, they will often give you a capital double shot. 



As the season advances, black-game are the wildest of all 

 birds. Fair open shooting at them is quite out of the ques- 

 tion. As they seldom eat heather, their food on the moors 

 soon becomes scarce ; they then much more frequent the 

 stubble-fields and copses by the hillsides. You may often 

 see twenty or thirty feeding together on the sheaves, when 

 the corn is first cut ; but they are exceedingly alert for the 

 approach of an enemy. I have seen them doing the farmer 

 as much injury as so many barn-door fowls. Your best plan 

 then is to hide yourself among the sheaves, and wait for their 

 feeding-hours. If you are well concealed, and have selected 

 the proper part of the field, you may have an opportunity of 

 killing a brace sitting with your first barrel, and another bird 

 with your second. 



As the fields become bare, and the days shorten, they begin 

 to feed three times namely, at daybreak, at noon, and an 

 hour before dusk. To get a shot then is much more difficult. 

 I have made a hole in the stone walls which enclose most of 

 the Highland fields, in order to shoot through it. I have also 

 placed a bush on the top to screen myself when rising to fire ; 



1 I shot a fine old cock in August 1840, whose crop was full of a yellow flower 

 of the dandelion kind, very common on the moors. 



