232 FLIGHTS OF GROUSE IN SEARCH OF WATER 



supply of good water. When young they are nearly 

 always well nursed by the parent birds if the water is 

 not too far distant ; but this is the period of their life 

 when they suffer most from want of good water. In 

 dry seasons their parents could travel four or five 

 miles to where they could obtain it, and I have known 

 old barren birds go even further afield for it. This, 

 however, is utterly beyond the powers of the young 

 ones, and the old birds, sooner than leave their young 

 broods, prefer to perish with them, and thus thousands 

 of old and young grouse die, the latter soon suc- 

 cumbing, the former after lingering for weeks in an 

 advanced stage of disease. It is at such times that 

 shepherds and others who are on the moors so often 

 pick up grouse which are unable to fly away. Stag- 

 nant water has been the cause, and instead of saving 

 the lives of the young and old birds, it but serves to 

 prolong the agony of the latter, sometimes for many 

 weeks. 



It ought to be the aim and interest of all owners of 

 shootings to furnish the grouse on their moors with 

 good water, and to spare no expense which may be 

 necessary to do so, when they are aware what sad 

 havoc the drinking of the moss-water causes to the 

 birds on their shootings, which, after all, are dependent 

 in a great measure for their well-being on their owners. 



But I must revert to the main line of my subject, 

 which rather had reference to the finding and shooting 

 of grouse, than to their management. It will be well 

 to remember that when a covey of grouse are flushed 

 on the top of a hill, their tlight is, generally speaking, 

 much shorter than when flushed on the level plain. I 

 have known birds, even in August, when they are 



