THE MOOR 157 



that is absolutely neglected. Its necessity is chiefly 

 found on high ranged moors, the tendency being for 

 birds to emigrate to the lower reaches during severe 

 weather. Mr. Stuart Wortley writes on this point : 

 " It is quite worth while to feed them a little at such 

 times. It is chiefly when the snow is caked or frozen 

 over with a very thin coating of ice, and they cannot 

 scratch through it to get food, that they are most pinched 

 and may leave the ground, never to come back. I 

 remember Mr. Walter Stanhope telling me that in the 

 very hard winter of 1859-60, the grouse on his Dunford 

 Bridge moor left the grounds in hundreds. Many 

 were killed in the fields in a half-starved state, and 

 even one or two in the Barrack Square at Sheffield, 

 some fifteen miles off. He then sent men up to the 

 moor with long rakes, and as they raked the snow off, 

 the grouse followed them close, as gulls will follow the 

 plough. Your keeper should see to these methods of 

 helping them to feed in severe weather, and not, as is 

 too often the case, helplessly gape at the half-starved 

 packs sitting on walls or scratching at the ground in the 

 fields below the moorland, until, forced by hunger, they 

 rise and fly clean away in search of milder conditions." 

 Of course, the feeding of the birds must not be 

 carried out unless under dire necessity, for there is a 

 probability of some uncharitable neighbour considering 

 the action unsportsmanlike, in so far as it may draw 

 away the birds from his moor. But there is not much 

 danger of this misunderstanding taking place. Stocks 



