48 The Natural History of British Game Birds 
favourite food, and with this they pack their crops every evening, 1 pulling off the tender 
shoot with a sharp jerk. In the autumn their love of cereals is too well known to be 
remarked upon, beyond stating that where corn-fields are to be found in the vicinity 
of their haunts, coveys and large packs resort every evening to dine. They even 
frequent these fields when snow-clad, on the chance of picking up a few grains. In 
summer and autumn they feed largely on all fruits within their reach, such as blueberry, 
blackberry, cranberry, and cloudberry, whilst the leaves of the mountain willow, blueberry, 
and the flower of the buttercup are articles of diet. In hard weather they will resort to 
the trees, like blackgame, and I have seen immense packs feeding on the fruit of thorns 
and rowans at low levels, especially where the snow has drifted. I think they will 
even eat birch buds at this season, although I have never seen them in their crops. 
A good supply of grit is very necessary to their well-being, as well as an abundance 
of fresh water. 
"In very severe winters, when there is a great depth of snow, grouse are obliged to leave 
the high tops for the cultivated lowlands, and at these periods the moors are quite deserted. 
While the snow is soft they are able to tunnel into it and so get at their food, but when a thaw 
is succeeded by rain and followed by frost the surface of the snow becomes glazed with ice, 
and the birds are unable to make a way through owing to the formation of their claws, which, 
admirably suited as they are for walking on the soft surface, are not adapted for burrowing 
through frozen snow. 
"In the years 1886 and 1895 huge packs of grouse were compelled to resort to the low 
country, where they fed on corn, turnip leaves, or buds and hedgerow fruits ; many were observed 
perched on hedges and the lower branches of trees, and some even were noticed on the seashore 
and in the vicinity of large towns. On the breaking up of the storm, birds gradually work back 
to their original ground, although many seek fresh quarters, thereby providing a much-needed 
change of blood, and as those that are weak or diseased doubtless succumb to the rigour of the 
weather, it follows that the remainder constitute a strong and healthy breeding stock, the result 
being to the ultimate advantage of the supply on the moors. 
"Grouse are very fond of picking up pieces of grit, which is in reality necessary to all game 
birds, though until recently it was not generally known they ate peat, but in North Yorkshire they 
have been observed to do so. In the mornings they eject a pasty mass of indigestible matter, 
samples of which have been examined and discovered to consist of grit and vegetable substances, 
leaves of plants, chiefly ling, formed into a pulp." 2 
Although the principal food of the Red Grouse is the young shoots of the heather 
or ling {Calhma vulgaris) and the common heaths {Erica tetralix and Erica cinerea), 
it is wrong to suppose that the species cannot exist without them. As a matter of 
fact there are many moors in Cheshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Wigtown, Ayrshire, 
Argyllshire, Kinross, Perth, &c, where Grouse are abundant and where heather is quite 
unknown or only occurs in patches. Instead of ling and heath there is a plant which 
closely resembles both these species, and whose purply black fruit, and possibly the 
shoots, afford an agreeable food to both Grouse and ptarmigan. This is the common 
crowberry (Emfiefrum nigrum), a. dwarf shrub, in no way related botanically to the 
heaths, but found in abundance in sub-arctic lands from the British Isles to Kamtschatka, 
and from Alaska to Labrador and Newfoundland. The foliage of the crowberry is 
1 Grouse pick about a little in the early morning, but do not eat much beyond grit and a few shoots of heather. In the 
corn season they will stop all night on the fields, eating a little at daybreak. 
2 Field, Aug. 17, 1907. 
