THE GAME BREEDER 



17 



GROUSE NOTES. 



Big Bags of Grouse. 



Mr. A. J. Stuart Wortley, after citing 

 many big bags of grouse, a thousand or 

 more birds being shot in a day, says : "I 

 do not think any bad consequences have 

 followed these rare feats. If they have, 

 as is probably the case, stimulated others 

 to improve their shooting and the man- 

 agement of their moors, they have done 

 more good than harm, and merely re- 

 sulted in an increase of the supply of 

 grouse available as food or sport for 

 those who own moorland estates." 



The area suitable for grouse shooting 

 in Scotland is very small in comparison 

 with the vast prairies and plains in manji 

 of our Western States where the prairie 

 grouse and sharp-tailed grouse were 

 tremendously abundant to say nothing 

 about the States Ohio and Kentucky, 

 where the grouse have become extinct 

 and where they can easily be restored 

 when it becomes possible to procure 

 grouse and eggs for breeding purposes. 



Audubon described the grouse as a 

 pest in Kentucky on account of the dam- 

 age done to fruit trees. The grouse to- 

 day easily can be made more valuable 

 than any fruit and by proper manage- 

 ment, using scare boys during the breed- 

 ing season, they can be prevented from 

 doing any damage. The Game Conser- 

 vation Society before long will make it 

 possible for grouse breeders to procure 

 stock birds and eggs, and those who un- 

 dertake grouse breeding will have more 

 valuable birds than pheasants and far 

 better shooting than pheasant shooting 

 is. Why in the name of common sense 

 should it be legal to have foreign pheas- 

 ants and not American grouse? 



plentiful although the markets be fully 

 supplied; to accomplish such results it 

 would only be necessary to utilize a very 

 small part of the area where grouse are 

 extinct or where shooting is prohibited. 

 How will sport be damaged by such 

 activity? The late Mr. A. A. Hill, for- 

 merly vice-president of the Game Conser- 

 vation Society, told the writer about a 

 good days grouse shooting which he en- 

 joyed in Scotland. One day when travel- 

 ing he was eating his dinner in a country 

 inn, a gentleman who was present asked 

 if he was not a stranger in Scotland, 

 When he replied that he was from 

 America he was asked if he was fond of 

 shooting. The grouse season had just 

 opened and Mr. Hill said he was invited 

 to try the shooting. He said he had not 

 come prepared to shoot and had no gun 

 with him but the stranger said he could 

 supply the gun and the result was an 

 agreeable days sport. 



In most of the States in America 

 where the grouse still occur the shooting 

 is prohibited and sportsmen from 

 abroad often wonder that the shooting 

 which should make and keep the grouse 

 abundant is not permitted and that State 

 Game Departments are supported by 

 sportsmen in order to prohibit sport in 

 the hope that some day the birds will 

 come back. Truly said the late dean of 

 sportsmen, Charles Hallock, we need "a 

 revolution of thought and a revival of 

 common sense." Some grouse shooting 

 clubs are needed. 



Grouse Shooting in Scotland. 



Although the area for grouse shooting 

 is small, as we have observed, many 

 Americans were in the habit of going to 

 Scotland every season before the war, to 

 shoot grouse because grouse shooting has 

 been prohibited in America in order to 

 "save the game." Shooting not only can 

 be made to save the game but to keep it 



Grouse Management. 



The Rev. H. A. Macpherson, writing 

 about the grouse in Scotland, says: "If 

 we allow the moors to becomje over- 

 stocked, we increase the susceptibility of 

 the game to the various forms of disease 

 which have been clearly exploited by Dr. 

 Klein and other scientific workers. But 

 the vital question in the management of 

 a grouse moor is the maintenance of a 

 proper food supply. Grouse are hardy 

 fowl and can face wet seasons, not in- 



