168 THE RED GROUSE. 



It is well known that on all the more southern muirs, 

 not a tenth of the former number of birds at present 

 exist;* and it is only in the more remote districts, 

 where access and accommodation for sportsmen are 

 in some degree wanting, that they are to be seen in 

 any thing like their former numbers. 



The red grouse is plentiful still in Scotland and 

 Ireland, now more sparingly spread over the southern 

 districts of the former, and upon the wilder muirs of 

 England. There also the habits of the birds have 

 considerably changed. By the approaches of culti- 

 vation to the higher districts, and in insulated patches 

 of grain even in the middle of the wildest, the grouse 

 have learned to depend on the labours of the husband- 

 man for his winter's food, and instead of seeking a 

 more precarious subsistence during the snow, of ten- 

 der heath-tops or other mountain plants, they migrate 

 to the lower grounds and enclosures, and before 

 the grain is removed, find a plentiful harvest. Hun- 

 dreds crowd the stooks in the upland corn-fields 

 where the weather is uncertain, and the grain remains 

 out even till December snows ; while in the lower 

 countries they seek what has been left on the stubble 

 or ploughed fields. It is only in the wildest parts of 

 the Highlands, the Cairngorum range, Ross, or 

 Sutherland, where the grouse is an inhabitant through 

 the year, of the muirs, his native pasture, and where 



* In foimer days, the Earl of Strathm ore's gamekeeper, 

 for a considerable bet, undertook to shoot forty brace of 

 game upon his Lordship's muirs in Yorkshire. By two 

 o'clocK he iiad killed forty-three brace. 



