Birds. 



6259 



together ; grouse do not while still less than full-grown, and, when 

 full-grown, seldom live or move much together as partridges in covey 

 do. My own impression is that seven or eight young birds is more 

 than a full average brood. Last season's hatch was an unfavourable 

 one. * One day, about a week before the season came in, T gave an 

 old dog of mine a run over part of the moor, and in the course of my 

 walk I saw two broods of seven or eight, several of five or six, and a 

 great many more of two or three. A deserted nest I w^alked over 

 contained seven eggs, and I should say that a nest containing four- 

 teen or fifteen eggs (see Yarrell, ii, 317) is very rare indeed. 



The young birds, while still quite small, like the young partridge 

 and peewit, show great readiness in concealing themselves. You may 

 disturb a brood of little grouse, and see them ''squandering," as folks 

 say here, in all directions. The one or two you happen to have fixed 

 your eye on, or otherwise marked," may be picked up easily enough. 

 The search for the others, however, except on very unfavourable ground 

 — unfavourable, I mean, to the bird from want of roughness or cover 

 — will most likely be baffled. They hide themselves in a marvellous 

 w^ay, squeeze between objects that seem to forbid all passage, worm 

 their way amid the cover, — unless, indeed, the cause of alarm is very 

 close to them, in which case they lie like stones, and without a dog it 

 is in vain to think of finding them after the first minute or two of 

 alarm and dispersion. 



I have already noticed that, unlike the covey of partridges, the 

 brood of grouse seldom rises en masse. Very constantly — at least 

 after the young birds can in a degree shift for themselves by flight, 

 but still are far short of full growth — the old cock is the first to rise. 

 On the first sign of an intruder, whether man or dog, he appears to 

 take the hint, and begins to beat a retreat. He runs perhaps twenty 

 or thirty yards or more, and then takes wing, often at a very safe dis- 

 tance from the gun, if there be one. The hen, on the other hand, 

 remains with her brood. She may rise the first, when flight becomes 

 necessary, but just as often it is a young bird which leads the way : 

 it seems to depend on the chance which causes either the pointer or 

 the man to stumble on this or that particular bird. The others con- 

 tinue quiescent until " found" in their several turns, and unless two 

 or three happen to be laid close together it is seldom that more than 

 one, or possibly two, rise together. The young birds, when about 



^ This was wriUen very early in July. The same remarks, however, will apply, 

 word for word, to the present season, and to the numbers of the broods I saw in the 

 course of one or two similar walks taken this year. 



