168 
THE RED GROUSE. 
It is well known that on all the more southern muirs, 
not a tenth of the former number of birds at present 
exist ; * and it is only in the more remote districts, 
where access and accommodation for sportsmen are 
in some degree wanting, that they are to be seen in 
any thing like their former numbers. 
The red grouse is plentiful still in Scotland and 
Ireland, now more sparingly spread over the southern 
districts of the former, and upon the wilder muirs of 
England. There also the habits of the birds have 
considerably changed. By the approaches of culti- 
vation to the higher districts, and in insulated patches 
of grain even in the middle of the wildest, the grouse 
have learned to depend on the labours of the husband- 
man for his winter’s food, and instead of seeking a 
more precarious subsistence during the snow, of ten- 
der heath-tops or other mountain plants, they migrate 
to the lower grounds and enclosures, and before 
the grain is removed, 6nd a plentiful harvest. Hun- 
dreds crowd the slooks in the upland corn-fields 
where the weather is uncertain, and the grain remains 
out even till December snows ; wliile 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 Cairngorum range, Ross, or 
Sutherland, where the grouse is an inhabitant through 
the year, of the muirs, his native pasture, and where 
• In former days, the Earl of Strathmore’s gamekeeper, 
for a considerable bet, undertook to shoot forty brace of 
game upon his Lordship’s muirs in Yorkshire. By two 
o’clocK he had killed forty-three brace. 
