354 TETRAONID^E. 



market only, could the number be ascertained, must be 

 enormous, when it is considered that from the second week 

 in August up to the present time, the end of the first week 

 in March, of every year, the supply is large and constant. 

 The females of the Red Grouse now to be seen in the shops 

 of the London poulterers, March 7th, 1840, have begun 

 to assume the plumage peculiar to the breeding-season. 

 These have been killed very recently, and I have observed 

 within the last three years, that a considerable portion of 

 the birds I have examined bore no marks of having been 

 shot, and have probably been caught by sliding loops of 

 horse hair set up across their paths or runs in the heather. 



It has been observed that it seems almost marvellous 

 that a species which furnishes sport to so many, and to 

 such an extent, besides those taken clandestinely, should 

 continue to exist in such quantities in the country. The 

 Earl of Strathmore's gamekeeper was matched for a con- 

 siderable sum to shoot forty brace of moor game in the 

 course of the 12th of August, upon his lordship's moors in 

 Yorkshire : he performed it with great ease, shooting 

 forty-three brace by two o'clock ; at eight in the morning, 

 owing to a thick fog, he had only killed three birds, and 

 the odds ran much against him ; however, the day cleared 

 up by eleven, and the work of slaughter went on rapidly. 



In 1801, a gentleman in Inverness-shire, shot fifty-two 

 brace of moor-game in one day, never killing a bird sitting, 

 or more than one bird at one shot. At the first of the 

 season the young birds lie close, particularly where the 

 heath is high and strong, affording excellent sport after a 

 favourable breeding-season, and the newspapers frequently 

 record the great numbers killed by parties that are favour- 

 ably located; but as the season advances, the birds get 

 strong, and from being disturbed, become wild, and the 



