MANAGEMENT OF GROUSE MOORS 
smothering the flames, and not by beating them down. It is so handy 
that it is easy to keep on fashioning, and leaving unburned, small patches 
of heather, which are available at once both as nesting sites as soon as 
the young growth has carpeted the ground, and also as shelter for the 
chicks at the approach of danger. 
Grouse, when feeding, prefer heather of eight or ten inches in height 
to that of a shorter growth, no doubt because, as they stand upright, 
often even on tiptoe, to reach the topmost shoots, they can see danger 
from afar, and keep a guarded look-out whilst they are feeding. Con- 
sidering the immense number of shoots they devour each time, morning 
and evening, it would require hours for each meal if they had to stoop 
to pick low heather for each mouthful, as they have to do when seeking 
grit on the ground, for directly they swallow a piece they look up to see 
if danger is approaching. With the few pieces of grit which are required 
this slow way does not matter, but with heather it is different. The late 
Mr Prior once counted the contents of a grouse’s crop, which contained 
9,700 separate pieces, the bulk being green heather leaves (about 8,700), 
whilst the remainder of the mass was made up of heather blossoms, a 
small number of grass stalks, and a few bilberry stalks and leaves. Grouse, 
when feeding, nip off the shoots in rapid succession, jerking their heads 
with a motion quite different from that of geese grazing; but, then, 
the latter are picking grass close to the ground, of short growth as 
a rule, and of firm habit, whilst the heather has considerable spring, 
and is perhaps ten inches high. The goose therefore pulls the blade of grass 
towards it, tucking in its chin as it plucks at the grass, but the grouse, 
reaching up to its full height, nips off the leaf of the heather with a sideways 
twist, sometimes breaking off a sprig with three or four leaves at a time. 
Supply of grit . — One of the most important requirements of a moor is an 
ample supply of grit, and the want of it may render large tracts of otherwise 
suitable ground unfit for nesting, if the chicks cannot get a supply of this 
necessary. Grouse prefer quartz grit, and will travel far to obtain it, and 
much can be done to improve a moor deficient in this respect by bringing 
some from elsewhere, and putting it down regularly at certain places — 
which the grouse will soon find out — and frequent. Old cartridge boxes 
form handy receptacles, and can be put down in spots where the grit 
would otherwise pass out of sight, such as mossy ground. In snowstorms 
it is well to lay bare patches of road, down to the road-metal, and thus 
afford the grouse a chance of obtaining some grit. Very small stuff, as 
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