6260 



Birds. 



three-quarters grown, will often run a long way through the ling, and 

 at other times, and very frequently early in the season, lie so close 

 that it is very difficult to induce them to fly. Indeed, they are often 

 taken up by hand to save them from the dog, who, if young, is apt to 

 be misled by their pertinacious quiescence into giving them a nip 

 with his jaws. When lying in this way it is no easy thing to detect 

 them in their concealment. But all this becomes utterly changed in 

 the course of a very few weeks. On the 27th of August, last year, I 

 killed 15j brace in three or four hours' shooting, in spite of indispo- 

 sition so severe that 1 was obliged to lie down several times after dis- 

 charging my gun. I might have doubled the number killed, easily. 

 Scarcely one month later the gamekeeper, having orders to send 

 away thirty brace within a week, was out almost daily himself for 

 eight days, and was assisted on two days by an under-keeper and 

 myself. On one of these two days, Sept. 22, I was out for four 

 hours, and, having no cartridges with me, was only able to get three 

 or four grouse. From this time to the end of the season a dog is of 

 very little use on these moors, except for the purpose of finding a 

 wounded bird. An old dog who will keep at heel, and not be very 

 eager to range, is therefore all the sportsman lakes ; and it is but sel- 

 dom he can walk within thirty yards of a grouse on the open moor. 

 Now and then, to be sure, he may walk upon one; but if he wants to 

 make a bag he must get birds as he can, by the use of the cartridge 

 and by means of a species of stalking, or by driving" the moor. 



1 do not think this wildness of the grouse is to be accounted for 

 simply on the ground that the birds have been often disturbed 

 or harassed. (See Yarr. ii. 318). This moor has been very little shot 

 since 1 have known it, and some years a great proportion of the birds 

 might scarcely hear a gun fired very near them ; and yet all became 

 equally wild every year. Indeed, this year they became very wild in 

 August, and I believe up to the present date, Sept. 13, have never 

 been very easily accessible. A slight and early snow sometimes has 

 the effect of rendering it more easy to approach them, at least for a 

 few hours ; but, ordinarily, the most extreme cold, and a covering of 

 snow a foot thick, does not appear to tame them at all. Under such 

 circumstances they collect in enormous packs, and betake themselves 

 to some particular part of the moor, it may be to a hill-edge, or where, 

 from the conformation of the surface, the snow may have been driven 

 off to a greater or less extent. 



I have seen a wounded grouse dive beneath the snow, and conceal 

 itself among the ling below. One I knew thus concealed was dis- 



