Practical Game-Preserving. 202 



whilst furnishing them with the protection the run affords 

 against winged vermin. It is also advisable to keep some 

 traps set at all likely points where cats (wild domestic 

 ones), stoats, polecats, &c., are likely to attempt an entry. 

 Every day, or on alternate days, some of the berries which 

 grouse claim as a portion of their food should, if possible, 

 be collected and scattered about where the young birds may 

 find and pick them up. If the supply of natural food be 

 found scanty, as it probably will unless a well-adapted 

 spot be chosen, it will be necessary to provide some artificial 

 food, which may be given night and morning ; it should 

 take the shape of that recommended for pheasants at a 

 similar age, with the exception of maize and peas. The 

 broods, as they become older and increase in size and 

 strength, will require more careful watching, consequent 

 on their developing an independence of action which might 

 lead them to roam too far afield by day, and to seek to 

 take up their quarters beneath some bush or tuft of heather 

 or brake by night, instead of finding their way back with 

 the hens to their coops, to which it will mostly be found 

 necessary to guide them, and close them in for the night. 

 Young hand-reared grouse are not subject to disease like 

 young pheasants, but many will often be invalided by 

 such maladies as are brought on by the inclemency of the 

 weather ; for instance, cramp, catarrh, and the like. The 

 treatment is as for pheasants. They will, however, die 

 off sometimes in a most disappointing way ; this is generally 

 due to unsuitability of the site or mismanagement in the 

 rearing. 



As soon as the youngsters have acquired sufficient 

 plumage and experience to fly a short distance, they may 

 be taken away to a dry part of the moor not too thickly 

 tenanted with birds, where they may be turned down at a 

 spot where shelter and food are plentiful, and whence 



