44 RED GROUSE. 



placed in similar company prior to this period. After the usual interrogatories on such 

 occasions, as I had not been remarkably successful, he offered me game at four shillings 

 a brace, presenting several fine birds for my examination; one amongst the number was 

 an old cock that had, I should suppose, escaped the deadly tube for four or five, or 

 perhaps six, seasons ; he was the largest Red Grouse that ever fell under my observation, and 

 his weight could not have been much less than two pounds : an old male bird seldom reaches 

 more than a pound and a half, and not very often that; the female is considerably less. 

 The man was, no doubt, an inveterate poacher; and notwithstanding the habitual 

 cunning of his tribe, there was in his manner a great degree of unaffected and unqualified 

 simplicity. Upon remarking to him that his birds appeared to have been killed several 

 days, and consequently before the legal commencement of the shooting season, he unhes- 

 itatingly replied that the fine cock which I then held in my hand he had shot four days 

 prior to the 12th. of August. As no kind of game fades so soon as Grouse, and as the 

 weather during this period had been remarkable for heat, I inquired how he had contrived 

 to keep his game so well, as it was still sweet; when he gave me the information related 

 above, and added that the birds he then shewed me would keep three days longer. He 

 farther remarked that his fraternity found it requisite to commence their season a week 

 before the gentlemen's season, in order to be prepared with a supply of game for bad 

 shots or unlucky sportsmen, and also for the stage-coaches which crossed Stainmoor on 

 their way from the north to Liverpool, Manchester, and other large towns. It was at 

 a period when percussion guns had not become general; the man, in the most respectful 

 manner, asked me to allow him to look at my double detonators, and when he had 

 satisfied his curiosity, he asked me to give him a little of my gunpowder for the purpose 

 of priming his clumsy-looking flint lock, his own gunpowder being of that coarse kind 

 used in blasting or blowing up the earth or rock in the process of excavation, and of 

 which the lead-mining poachers no doubt rob their employers. Though coarse gunpowder 

 answered the purpose for the charge in the barrel, yet it was not well calculated, it 

 seems, for the purpose of priming. The sale of Grouse, he observed, had been very bad; 

 lie had still a considerable stock on hand ; he lowered his price to tempt me to purchase, 

 which I declined; and when, at length, he took his departure, in return, I suppose, for 

 my generosity in supplying him abundantly with priming powder, he pressed me to 

 accept a brace of his Grouse, which, it is almost unnecessary to remark, I declined." 



Large numbers of Grouse are snared in the oat fields of the cottagers and small farmers 

 who live near the moors. The Grouse are very fond of oats as a variety to their more 

 ordinary fare, and frequent these fields in large numbers; and as the approach of a 

 keeper is always easily seen at a considerable distance in such situations, the poacher 

 has ample time to remove all traces of his nefarious deeds before he comes up. 



"Grouse, generally speaking, become wild, and even unapproachable, by the beginning or 



