THE WAYS OF GROUSE 



Many an enthusiastic Grouse shooter has been heard 

 to express regret that he knows so little of the bird 

 which provides him in August with such excellent 

 sport. He has not time, he says, to learn much 

 about its mode of life. He sees it only for six weeks 

 or a couple of months in the year, and at a season 

 when, intent on killing it, observation of its habits is 

 rendered difficult by reason of its wildness. By 

 every means in his power he renders it so unapproach- 

 able that, in order to see it at all, he has to employ a 

 long line of " drivers" to send it flying over his head ; 

 and in lieu of watching at close quarters one of the 

 handsomest birds in the British game list, he can 

 only contemplate its dead body when it has fallen to 

 his unerring aim. A dead Grouse lying in a patch 

 of purple heather is truly a thing of beauty, and 

 cannot but evoke the greatest admiration ; yet, if 

 the sportsman be also a naturalist, he will hardly 

 repress a feeling of regret at having killed a creature 

 so surpassingly beautiful. The first thing probably 

 that will strike him is the harmonious colourinof of 

 the bird's plumage ; harmonious, that is, with the 

 natural surroundings of the moor on which it lives. 

 A delicate blending of the brown and yellow tints of 

 autumn, relieved here and there with a fleck of 

 white, and a sombre patch of black upon the breast 



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