217 Red Grouse. 



islands; and much as we may deplore the damage these 

 animals sometimes commit, yet grace must be extended to 

 them. In districts where sheep share the land with the 

 grouse, and " sheep " dogs abound, much damage will be 

 done by many of these, which go in for poaching game, 

 generally because they are half-starved at home. They 

 are easily trapped, and they should be, not only by reason 

 of their individual malpractices, but because they seem to 

 entice other and well-behaved dogs to share in and acquire 

 the knack of their nightly depredations. 



As to winged vermin, the same may be said of their 

 opportunities for destruction as of the furred. Crows, 

 rooks, magpies, jays, all are equally mischievous; but 

 probably the superiority in numbers of the first makes 

 them the worst feathered enemies of moorfowl. Of hawks 

 I have spoken already in the foregoing chapter. I may as 

 well say that I do not hold so evil an opinion, speaking 

 from the game-preserver's point of view, of the hawks, 

 as is usual among gamekeepers, and hope, when I come 

 to consider them as vermin, to put a less unfavourable con- 

 struction upon the habits of several of these beautiful 

 feathered denizens of our isles. 



The two or three weeks leading up to the Twelfth of 

 August provide the most profitable period in the grouse- 

 poacher's season, for, although, of course, grouse-poaching 

 goes on whenever opportunity offers after the shooting 

 season begins, still it is during the week or two imme- 

 diately preceding that date that the bulk of the netting and 

 snaring of grouse occurs. I know it is not unusual for 

 those interested to maintain that such poaching is so 

 occasional that there is no need to provide against the 

 risk. On the other hand, there can be little doubt that the 

 practice has of late years been on the increase. 



Outside the ordinary grouse-poacher, the poaching 



