RED GROUSE. 41 



tasted that season. Except for their being extremely tender, no one could possiblv have 

 said that they had been kept a day, so perfectly sweet were they. Both vinegar and 

 charcoal are powerfully antiseptic, and the latter also has the property of deodorising 

 any decaying substance. Birds hung up by the legs will keep, generally, at least a 

 week longer than those hung up by the neck: and if, when birds are first shot, they 

 are hung by the legs to a belt round the attendant keeper, they will be brought home 

 in a much better condition for sending off than if crammed into a game-bag, unless 

 indeed in wet weather, when probably the bag would be the least of two evils. 



The situations chosen by the Bed Grouse for its usual resorts, are those parts of 

 moorland country which are entirely heathy in character, being those, indeed, which are 

 intermediate in situation between the lofty, barren, and stony tracts frequented by the 

 Btarmigan. and the lower, swampy, and more wooded districts which we have described 

 as the haunts of the Black Grouse. A supply of heath upon dry ground, however, 

 appears to be the only absolute necessary, elevation above the sea-level not seeming to 

 have much influence on their presence, as we find them in many districts in situations 

 but slightly raised above the sea-shore. Mr. Thompson records that his friend John 

 Sinclaire. Esq., of Belfast, who has been a regular Grouse-shooter for upwards of sixty 

 vears. has not onlv found Grouse occasionallv in stubble and srrass fields a mile distant 

 from the mountain heath about Ballantrae, Ayrshire, but has sprung them from the 

 heath growing in plantations of young trees about fifteen feet in height." This would 

 seem to bear out the remark made by Sir TV". Jardine that "the habits of the birds 

 have considerably changed. By the approaches of cultivation to the higher districts, 

 and by insulated patches of grain even in the middle of the wildest, the Grouse have 

 learned to depend on the labours of the husbandman for their winter's food, and instead 

 of seeking a more precarious subsistence, during the snow, of tender heath-tops or other 

 mountain plants, they migrate to the lower grounds and enclosures, and before the grain 

 is removed, find a plentiful harvest. Hundreds crowd the stooks in the upland corn 

 fields, where the weather is uncertain, and the grain remains out even till ''December's 

 snows:" while in the lower countries they seek what has been left on the stubble or 

 ploughed fields." 



The Bed Grouse is not naturally a wild bird, and in places where they were but 

 little molested, they have allowed us to approach within a short distance of them without 

 appearing frightened; if, however, they are much disturbed, they become extremely wary 

 and shy, and require the utmost care and skill to circumvent them. The colour of the 

 birds assimilating so closely to that of the heath among which they live, it is an easy 

 matter to walk over a bird, if it is inclined to lie, as it frequently will, like a stone. 



But although heath-clad hills are the usual and ordinary haunts of the Bed Grouse, 

 one or two have occasionally been met with in localities widely different in every respect. 



