Birds. 



6261 



covered by the shooter clroppmg the cartridge he was proceeding to 

 load with, and on stooping to pick it up finding it had fallen almost 

 or quite upon the bird. 



An old bird will often run a long way before taking flight, and 

 when wounded, if not followed immediately, will run quickly and 

 silently away to a great distance. If pursued at once, he runs 

 awkwardly, and with a great deal of noise and disturbance, and is 

 easily caught ; unlike the partridge, whose speed is great enough to 

 baffle even a fleet human pusurer. 



Grouse frequently fly some considerable distance over the en- 

 closures, from one part of the moor to another. I was one day 

 walking by the beck-side, a full mile at least from the moor on either 

 hand, when 1 heard the note of the grouse. Looking up, I saw two 

 flying at a great height above me, I should think 500 or 600 feet at 

 least. The total length of their aerial trip could not have been less 

 than two miles. Last winter, again, I saw from fifteen to twenty fly 

 over my premises, scarcely out of gun shot. Their flight, probably, 

 was little less in length than in the other case. 



They may constantly be seen alighting on a wall, and cackling or 

 crowing there. I have seen this at all times of the year, but it is 

 more frequently observable when the influence of the breeding aropyy) 

 is upon them. Then the cock bird, if an intruder comes near, often 

 flies to some little eminence or a wall, if there be one near, and crows, 

 and raises his head in watchful observation of the stranger. 



It is very remarkable, about the time the general hatch draws on, 

 how all grouse-life seems to have ceased on the moor. A few days 

 before the observer would have seen a great number of birds, princi- 

 pally cocks, as he crossed the moor ; now he may walk for an hour 

 without seeing more than a bird or two. I have this year traversed 

 certain parts of this moor for miles, and not seen half-a-dozen grouse 

 in the course of my whole walk ; while at a somewhat earlier period 

 the same walks would have probably showed me thirty or forty pairs. 

 The objects of such close concealment of themselves are sufficiently 

 obvious. 



Grouse do not here often descend far from the moor on to the cul- 

 tivated land. They may sometimes be seen, early in the morning, in 

 such corn-stubbles as are close upon the verge of the moor. If, how- 

 ever, the stubbles are on the same level as the moor, and merely sepa- 

 rated from it by the enclosure-fence and not by any portion of inter- 

 vening " bank," it is no unusual thing to see them at feed. There 

 were one or two such stubbles in my beat last year, and I more than 



