Practical Game-Preserving. 228 



attended to, a fair head can never be kept up, although by 

 great endeavours a sprinkling of birds may be temporarily 

 established, quickly to dwindle down, and eventually to 

 disappear. 



Bearing these provisos well in mind, the preserver should 

 set about securing for himself the nucleus of a stock from 

 which to build up a head of heath-poults. Two ways are 

 open to him either to turn away part- or full-grown birds 

 with a view to their introduction, or to go in for hand- 

 rearing a number of young birds. The first course means 

 the purchase of a large number of, say, well-matured 

 but not old birds at a moderate price, and risk attendant 

 on the enterprise. There is little difficulty in obtaining 

 birds and eggs from reputable Continental sources. With 

 regard to a good many matters of Black Game preserving, 

 the remarks in treating of Red Grouse hold good, and I 

 shall, for the moment, devote attention to the hand-rearing 

 of the Black Grouse. 



In the case of pheasant-rearing, I found the diseases 

 to which the young chicks are subject to be the usual cause 

 of failure, and although in the case of Black Game it is 

 not exactly disease that produces the ill-success, still it is 

 when the chicks are at a tender age that the crisis is 

 reached and that they are found difficult to treat satisfac- 

 torily. Up to the time when the eggs are hatched out, the 

 instructions given for Red Grouse- rear ing hold good, but 

 in the matter of food during the first week or so a dis- 

 tinction must be made. The chief food Black Game 

 chicks consume for two or three weeks is the seed and 

 small flowers of a small rush, termed the " spret " or 

 " sprit," which grows very thickly and closely on moor- 

 lands and commons, lone copse, &c., near and in boggy 

 parts. Unless the coop with the hen and chicks can be 

 allocated a dry piece of turf near some small stream of 



