RED GROUSE. 
91 
By the approaches of cultivation to the higher dis- 
tricts, and by insulated patches of grain even in the 
middle of the wildest, the grouse have learned to 
depend on the labours of the husbandman for his 
winters food, and instead of seeking a more pre- 
carious subsistence, during the snow, of tender 
heath-tops or other mountain plants, they migrate 
to the lower grounds and enclosures, and before 
the grain is removed, find a plentiful harvest. Hun- 
dreds crowd the stooks in the upland corn-fields, 
where the weather is uncertain, and the grain re- 
mains out even till “ December’s snows •“ while in 
the lower countries they seek what has been left 
on the stubble or ploughed fields. It is only in 
the wildest parts of the Highlands, the Cairngorm 
range, Boss, or Sutherland, where the grouse is an 
inhabitant, through the year, of the moors, his 
native pasture, and where he is also nearly the 
only enlivener of these wild solitudes, by his loud 
morning and evening call. During summer it may 
be varied by the whistle of the curlew, or the wail- 
ing of the golden plover, or perhaps interrupted by 
the sailing flight of some harrier or other bird of 
prey ; but in winter, for miles around, 
“ Dwells but the gor-cock and the deer.” 
Unless where much disturbed, the grouse is not 
a wild bird, and, unaware of danger, it will allow 
a person to approach or walk past, uttering only 
its call, as if to make its companions aware that 
something is near. In districts where they are 
