THE GROUSE. 
191 
grouse have influence over politics, as we are constantly reminded ; over trade 
and railway enterprise ; and last, but not least, over the well-being and pros- 
perity of a large proportion of our population. As Mr. Macpherson remarks, 
Scotland owes a very large proportion of her material prosperity to the fact that 
it is the home of this splendid bird. 
In the first seventy-nine pages Mr. II. A. Macpherson deals with the natural 
history of the Grouse in five chapters ; viz., “ In Praise of the Grouse ; ” “ The 
Manners of the Grouse;” “The Grouse and its Enemies;” “ The Plumage of 
the Grouse ; ” and “ Grouse-Becking ; ” and the “ southron ” reader will appre- 
ciate this part of the book the more insomuch as it is the work of a “ Highland 
laird.” 
In an interesting dissertation on the bird’s names — Celtic and English — our 
author points out that “ grouse” is not an English word at all, but was borrowed 
(apparently from an old P'rench adjective “griesche ” signifying or speckled), 
and used first as a plural, “ grice.” It was modified into “grows,” and Pro- 
fessor Newton has shown that this was originally applied to the blackcock, as 
long ago as 1531 indeed. The red grouse was originally the “moor-fowl,” 
“moor-game,” “moor-cock” or “ muir-fowl,” and still preserves these titles in 
some localities. We may supplement this information by adding now that 
although in an Act of Parliament passed in the second year of James L, we find 
“grouse” alongside heath-cock and moregame, showing that the first name still 
signified blackgame, yet by 1692, as is proved by a section of an Act (4 and 5 
Will, and Mary, Cap. 23), regulating the burning of heather for the better 
preserving of “ the red and black game of grouse, commonly called heath-cocks 
or heath-polts,” the name seems to have been applied to both species. 
The distribution of the grouse in Scotland, some of the Orkneys, Hebrides 
(there are none in the Shetlands), England down to Derbyshire, suitable places 
in Wales and in Ireland, is sketched, and the possibility of its successful intro- 
duction and establishment elsewhere discussed. A chapter on food, breeding 
and general habits at large and in captivity follows, and many readers of Nature 
Notes will peruse with pleasure the accounts of tame and bold domesticated 
grouse, one of which actually used to accompany the guns. The extent to which 
the grouse is migratory seems very uncertain. Birds have been known to fly 
from Hoy to Pomona across a channel quite four miles wide ; they have been 
seen flying across the Moray Firth, and in the severe weather of January, 1886, 
great packs of grouse used to fly from the moors, more than three miles off, 
down the valley, over the town of Masham, to feed on the cultivated land and 
the hedge berries. Another chapter is devoted to the judicious treatment and 
burning of the heather to ensure a good food supply, so necessary to the health 
of the birds, and to the question of vermin. It is well to know what constitutes 
the food of “vermin,” especially of birds of prey, and to know whether they 
are grouse-ivorous or not. We are inclined to think that we should always bear 
in mind the temptations to a particular line of diet which is set before a bird of 
prey when any species of bird or animal desirable for food is provided upon 
certain ground in excessive and unnatural abundance. Witness the birds and 
beasts which have taken to feeding largely on Arvicola agrestis during the late 
and other vole plagues. From the point of view of the birds of prey a chronic 
grouse-plague exists on many English and Scotch moors ! We are glad Mr. 
Macpherson can almost, if not quite, acquit the merlin and the kestrel, and are 
not at all surprised to find that those arch-villains the hooded and carrion crows 
are the worst foes of the grouse. A chapter on the plumage and hybridism of 
the grouse, followed by an account of the “dubious” pastime of “becking” 
grouse or calling them to the gun, and of some undoubted poaching practices, 
brings to a close this part of the volume, which we heartily hope will be read 
carefully in its entirety by all who want reliable information. 
The bulk of the volume is, as before, devoted to shooting. But every field 
naturalist should read Mr. Stuart-Wortley’s masterly treatises on shooting over 
dogs, Scotch and English “driving,” and ground stock and poaching, not only 
for the sake of his fresh and healthy sketches of moorland scenery and sounds, 
but because (as no one can become a good and successful sportsman without long 
and careful study of the habits of the game he follows) he will learn much 
therein of the ways and manners of the grouse. Many a field naturalist, and 
