The grouse. : Natural history, by H. A. Macpherson

Front matter

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■seFTTOT

Preface

The design of the Fur and Feather Series is to present monographs, as complete as they can possibly be made, on the various English birds and beasts which are generally included under the head of Game.

Books on Natural History cover such a vast number of subjects that their writers necessarily find it impossible to deal with each in a really comprehensive manner ; and it is not within the scope of such works exhaustively to discuss the animals described, in the light of objects of sport. Books on sport, again, seldom treat at length of the Natural History of the furred and feathered creatures which are shot or otherwise taken ; and, so far as the Editor is aware, in no book hitherto published on Natural History or Sport has information been given as to the best methods of turning the contents of the bag to account.

VI

PREFACE

Each volume of the present Series will, therefore, be devoted to a bird or beast, and will be divided into three parts. The Natural History of the species will first be given ; it will then be considered from the point of view of sport ; and the writer of the third division will assume that the creature has been carried to the larder, and will proceed to discuss it gastronomically. The origin of the animals will be traced, their birth and breeding described, every known method of circumventing and killing them — not omitting the methods employed by the poacher — will be explained with special regard to modern developments, and they will only be left when on the table in the most appetising forms which the delicate science of cookery has discovered.

It is intended to make the illustrations a prominent feature of the Series. The pictures in the present volume are after drawings by Mr. A. J. Stuart-Wortley and Mr. A. Thorburn. All of them, including the diagrams, have been designed under the supervision of the first-named.

ALFRED E. T. WATSON.

Contents

By the Rev. H. A. Macpherson

CHAP. ‘ PAGE

I. In Praise of the Grouse .... 3

Chapter I

It is hardly too much to say that the Red Grouse enjoys a unique position among the members of the feathered community. Certainly no other bird exacts a similar amount of homage from its admirers, or affords as large a share of enjoyment to sportsmen. In these days of increasing taxation, it would go hard with many of us Highland lairds if we had no grouse moors from which to draw the rates which go to support school boards and other luxuries exacted by the oppressive democracy. Scotland is pre-eminently the home of this splendid bird — a fact to which she owes a very large portion of her material prosperity. It was a happy hour when the Sassenach discovered the pleasure to be gained from renting a Northern grouse moor.

Until then the bird had existed only on sufferance, persecuted by many enemies and little cared for by anyone. It is true that its value as food was always recognised ; but that circumstance only led to its increased pursuit in the days when Englishmen killed the ‘ pootes ’ as well as the parent bird in the nesting season. Happily those evil days have well-nigh passed into oblivion. For us moderns the name of grouse has a fragrance of its own. Its bare mention suffices to set us dreaming of the fresh, breezy hillside, with its varied animal life and endless expanse of purple heather. Considering how widely the term grouse circulates, there is a certain quaintness in the fact that the word is not a British one at all, but only an addition to our language and of doubtful origin. Our forefathers borrowed the word from abroad, apparently from an old French adjective griesche^ signifying grey or speckled. From this originated a plural word printed thus in i6ii by Cotgrave, who used it to denote the ‘ moor-henne,’ the female, as he tells us, of the ‘ mooregame.’ The grouse was originally the moor-fowl, moor-game, moor-cock, or muir-fowl, and preserves these titles at the present day in many districts of both England and Scotland. Willughby called it the red game, and very properly. But the plural word grice was early modified into the singular grows. Professor Newton has shown that this title was first applied to the blackcock, notably in an ordinance for the household of Henry VIIL, dated from Eltham in the year 1531. Similarly, Charleton tells us that two species of the heath-cock or grouss are indigenous to Great Britain respectively entitled the black game and the grey game. In course of time the name grouse, very variously spelt, has, curiously enough, come to be applied to the red grouse almost exclusively. It may be well to mention that some scholars have sought a derivation of grouse in the Celtic terms grug= heather and -iar=a hen ; but the suggestion has not met with favour. If the origin of grouse, however, be somewhat perplexing — and I for one should be very thankful for further light upon the subject — it must be allowed that the origin of another name of the species is still more mysterious. I allude to the name gor-cock, which appears to have latterly dropped out of use, but which was formerly much in vogue both south and north of the Border. Professor Newton assures me that he has no clue to the etymology of this term, though he thinks it may have some connection with the harsh cry of the bird. My own belief is that it signifies red- cock, like the Gaelic ‘Coilleach Ruadh,’ referring to the reddish plumage of the typical bird. This view has not obtained the support of scholars ; but it is borne out by the fact that it was current in the seventeenth centur)\ Thus Ray writes : ‘ The Red Game, Lagopus

I

I altera Pllnii^ an Attagen Aldrov. In the north of England it is called the Gor-cock and Moor-cock^ the hen the More-hen^ the brood Gorfowl. Heath-cock is also a name common to this with the precedent. Turned s More-hen is the female of the precedent or Blackcock. Gor in the north of England signifies red, so the Gor-Cock is the red cock, &:c. For the understanding and exact distinctions of these names we are beholden to Mr. Johnson, of Brignal, in Yorkeshirc.’ ^

The prefix ‘ gor ’ has been applied to some other birds, notably to the great black-backed gull and to the carrion crow. The fishermen of the Solway Firth often speak of the great black-backed gull as the ‘ gor maw.’ In Oxfordshire, as Mr. O. V. Aplin tells us, the carrion crow is still recognised as a ‘ gor-crow.’ The syllable ‘ gor ’ seems in these two instances to be identical with the Saxon gor (carrion, or refuse), and to refer to the fact that both the black-backed gull and carrion crow feed upon carrion. Of the appropriateness of the prefix in these cases there can be no question. The gull preys habitually upon such fowl as escape wounded from the wildfowler, and often attacks a sickly lamb. The carrion crow is equally a foul feeder. But with regard to grouse, I think that

’ The Ornithology of Francis Willughby, p. 23.

‘ gor ’ must refer to the red plumage of the bird, whensoever it may have been imported.

Macgillivray was fond of coining new names for English birds, and he thought the grouse should be designated the red ptarmigan. The Gaelic names usually applied to this species are Coilleach Fraoich= the heather-cock, and Cearc Fhraoich=the heatherhen. It is also called Ian Fraoich=the heather-bird. The term most employed, at any rate in Skye, is the Cearc Fhraoich.

The red grouse is not limited in its distribution to the mainland of Scotland. Wherever the common ling or heather grows most rapidly and richly, there grouse naturally most abound. The islands of Scotland are generally inferior to the mainland as regards their properties for growing heather in the dense profusion which the grouse loves to find. In Skye, for instance, the birds are scattered over a wider area than on a good Perthshire moor ; in other words, they have to range more widely in search of food. Of course, we can assist nature considerably by infusing fresh blood into our insular races. I have not tried turning down birds in Skye for more than two seasons, and cannot, therefore, speak of, with certainty, local results ; but I am assured that the introduction of Yorkshire grouse into Rum has greatly increased the bags obtained on that magnificent island. Messrs. Harvie Brown and Buckley describe the grouse of the Lews as deteriorating in size, and as tending to die out, for which they specially blame in-breeding, an evil easily remedied, if desired. I believe, myself, that the fault lies in the want of zeal of the proprietors, who allow enormous numbers of hooded crows to exist and to plunder their moors. In Skye we persistently trap and poison these arch robbers, but we cannot get entirely rid of them, because a fresh supply is always forthcoming from the Long Island. Farther north, there are plenty of grouse in the Orkneys, not upon all the islands of the group, but upon the majority — viz. on the mainland.

Hoy, Burray, Flotta, Fara, Risa Little, Cava, Eday and Rousay. Stragglers occasionally visit the other islands in the autumn and winter months. But there are no grouse in the Shetlands. There never were any there until they were introduced. Their first introduction must date back two hundred years, since Brand tells us, in 170T, that grouse had previously been introduced into Shetland, but could not live there. They were numerous even then in Orkney, and the Fair Island peregrines used to visit Orkney to procure the moor-fowl as food for their young. Of late years, several efforts have been made to naturalise grouse in Shetland \ but the experiments appear to have been conducted carelessly, and have, so far, proved useless. It was about the year 1870 that Mr. D. D. Black, of Kergord, endeavoured to establish grouse at the head of Weisdale Voe. A quantity of trees were planted at the same time to afford shelter to the birds ; but the situation did not suit the Norway firs, and they consequently perished. At last one pair of grouse nested, however, because three young birds were caught upon Sandness Hill by a woman who carried them to Dr. Scott, of Melmby. In 1882, Mr. John Harrison of Windhouse, in Yell, procured upwards of forty grouse from Scotland for the purpose of turning down ; but, unhappily, almost all the consignment perished on the way, and only a single pair of birds was set free at their destination. These birds nested, and were joined in 1885 by five additional pairs. They lingered for some time on Yell, and tenanted the island in 1890. In Unst a female grouse nested in 1886, but the eggs proved unfertile, and the species became locally extinct. Mr. Harold Raeburn, to whom I am indebted for my present information, considers that there is no reason why grouse should not become perfectly well established in Shetland, if sufficient trouble were bestowed upon the experiment. The birds would have to face some drawbacks here as elsewhere ; e.g. the dense populalO NATURAL HISTORY OF THE GROUSE tion, the wet and stormy springs, and the sinful custom of burning heather all over instead of in suitable strips. Another difficulty in Shetland, as in very many places, is the great abundance of the hooded crow and other vermin. Mr. Raeburn thinks that the peninsula of Rbness on the mainland would suit grouse particularly well. What is required, if grouse are to become naturalised in Shetland, is the united effort of the various proprietors, who should join together in extirpating vermin, and turn down some hundreds of grouse for two or three successive seasons. I have no great faith, myself, in the virtue of experiments carried out on a small scale ; because introduced grouse would have, in the first instance, to fight stoutly for existence.

On the other hand, a well-considered scheme, accompanied by remedial measures for the protection of heather, would probably result in material benefit to the Northern Isles. Upon the Scottish mainland the grouse enjoys a general distribution, ranging freely over elevated moorlands as well as those situated in low-lying districts. A wonderful region of Scotland is that which lies between the high mountains and the western seas, bathed in a flood of thin mist or decorated with a variety of soft and soothing tints, marvellous reds and browns and greys mingling to-

IN PRAISE OF THE GROUSE ii

gether in glorious harmony. To lie upon an open shelf of rock, from which the sun has newly drawn the early dew, to listen silently, and drink in at leisure, all unnoticed, the cries of the wild population that hold their own among the pathless hills, this for the naturalist is a feast of intellect. Now it is an old male capercailzie whose fine bold form appears suddenly upon the scene, as he speeds through the top of a cluster of Scotch firs, having been rudely startled from his favourite perch by some passer-by. Anon, a restless curlew sweeps into the field of the binoculars, and proceeds to wheel in agitation above the rushy ground in which her progeny are skulking, quaint little downy morsels with their curious, straightened bills. A wary old blackcock comes speeding along the hill in full view of us, and a skein of wild duck appear circling overhead, wheeling round and round at a vast height from the earth. If we lingered a few minutes longer, we should surely be visited by a blue merlin, or, perhaps, a tercel might favour us with a morning call. Much of the charm with which the hills are invested is due to the delicious uncertainty as to what we may or may not meet with among the rocks and heather of the lonelier glens ; and I, for one, am obliged to confess that our national scenery exercises a stronger spell over my imagination than the beauties of Switzerland or the gloomy grandeur of the fiords of Western Norway. The grouse is pre-eminently bound up with our happiest memories of home scenery. Of course, the wealthy men among us can go to Spitzbergen and enjoy good sport with a form of ptarmigan which Mr. Abel Chapman considers to be almost identical with the red grouse ; or they may visit Northern Europe and kill willow grouse to their heart’s content ; but the grouse holds a unique position in the affections of most British sportsmen ; all the more, perhaps, since it is essentially an insular production, and cannot be met with out of Great Britain and Ireland, except, indeed, under certain artificial conditions.

I do not know anything of Irish moors at first hand, never having visited Ireland ; but the north of England affords as fine a race of grouse as can be found anywhere in the Northern kingdom. The Pennine range, especially, with its infinite number of outlying spurs, affords an enormous area for grouse to range over, and possesses the advantage of being near to the metropolis. Many quiet nooks of exquisite beauty are to be found among the grouse moors of Yorkshire and of Westmoreland. Farther south, the grouse manages to exist in close proximity to some of the grimy manufacturing towns of Lancashire. The account of the habits of the red grouse furnished

IN PRAISE OP THE GROUSE by Mr. Seebohm to Dresser’s ‘ Birds of Europe ’ was based upon his study of the species in Derbyshire. Farther south than this it seems useless to look for grouse, unless we turn aside into little Wales, which is not famous for the quality of bags obtained upon the Twelfth, though the species appears to exist in most suitable places in the Principality. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the grouse cannot thrive at a distance from the great lonely moorlands which constitute its natural home. I believe that the species could be naturalised in any part of Britain, provided the conditions of life proved suitable. The experiments that have been made in Norfolk, although carried out on a small scale, are full of encouragement. Mr. J. H. Gurney tells me that Mr. J. Hardcastle turned some grouse out on Holt Heath nearly twenty years ago, but that they have long since vanished. Better results have been obtained at Sandringham.

‘ Some fourteen years ago,’ writes Mr. Jackson, the head keeper, ‘thirty brace were turned down, and the following year another thirty brace. The experiment was not made with a view to add to the shooting, but for the pleasure of hearing and seeing the birds on the estate. I found that they nested and reared their young quite satisfactorily, but that they decreased in number between the breeding seasons — a fact which was doubtless due to their straying off our ground. They have an area of about 1,200 or 1,500 acres of heather, which is for the most i^art surrounded by grazing land. The stock is now reduced to about eight or ten brace.’ It must be the wish of all good sportsmen to see such experiments as that just described meet with an enlarged success. We do not take as much pains to improve our sport at home as we might. I wonder, for example, that landowners do not unite to turn down gadwall and other fowl all over the country, and thus convert our ponds and rivers into a national preserve of wildfowl. There are thousands of places that would hold a brace of teal or a few pairs of pintail, if only they were planted with large beds of rushes and well preserved. As for the grouse, its good qualities have begun to attract attention among our Continental neighbours. The pioneer was Baron Dickson, who established red grouse in Sweden between twenty and thirty years ago. It is now reported that the Belgian Government intends to people the sandy heaths of that country with drafts of red grouse.

Already the example of Baron Dickson has been emulated by Count Kniphausen, who owns a property in East Friesland, and has given the following account of his experiment : ‘ In the autumn of 1891 I ordered from a game dealer in England five pairs of live grouse for my game preserves near Wittmund in East Friesland, as an experiment in the way of naturalising this foreign game bird with us. My prospects regarding this attempt did not appear to me unpromising, as I could offer the birds on my sporting domain freedom from disturbance, plenty of water, heather, and various berry-bearing plants, and patches of buckwheat, to all of which these birds are said to be partial. The grouse were transported across the North Sea in November. They were sent from Scotland via London and Flushing, the consequence of which was that, by reason of the long railway journeys, the birds suffered very much, and succumbed, chiefly, I fear, from want of water — at any rate, I only received one pair alive on their arrival at their destination. I had taken pains beforehand to erect for them, in a thicket, an aviary of wire netting, with canvas overhead, provided plentifully with water and buckwheat, and with the wire netting stuck full of sprigs of heather, partly so that they might feel themselves more hidden, but chiefly because I understand that heather tops are their chief source of nourishment. After a few days’ rest I had one of the sides of the inclosure raised, so that the grouse might go out of their own accord. In the spring of 1893 I was rewarded by coming across the cock grouse in the company of a blackcock on my preserve, and had the pleasure of listening to his call. It also came to my knowledge that the hen was alive, and that she had incubated for about fourteen days, though too late in the year, for it was during the harvesting of the buckwheat that she was disturbed by the mowers. The cock and hen both flew away, and the hen, alas ! never sought her nest again. The eggs, fourteen in number, I have preserved. This delightful discovery, that a pair of grouse had lived all but two years on my property, and had even made a good attempt to rear a brood, made me resolve to go on with my experiments. The dealer to whom I addressed myself undertook, for twenty marks the pair, to deliver ten brace of grouse to me ; and we came to an understanding that he should send them at my cost from Hull to Bremen, that he should undertake their being carefully secured in boxes made expressly for the purpose, and that he should not be bound to make good any losses that might occur. Messrs. Weltmann, in Hull, who forward goods for the North German Lloyd’s Company, kindly undertook the delivery of them, and promised to see that they did not want for food or water on their thirty hours’ sea voyage; and thus, to my joy, my gamekeeper, whom I had sent to Bremen to fetch the birds, was enabled to deliver to me the whole lot of seven brace (more were not to be had at the time).

‘ The birds this time flew strongly when let out in their inclosure, but did not hurt themselves, owing to the canvas spread over the top. My sporting neighbours all belong to the Prussian and Oldenburg Forest and Moor Game Preservation Societies, to both of which I successfully applied, and they have, as before on the introduction of black-game, promised that for some years to come the protection of these grouse shall be looked upon by them as a strict duty. So it is to be hoped that this attempt to naturalise them in the plains of North-West Germany may succeed, as it did with the black-game, which had for many a long year been extinct there.’

And here I may remark that, as the red grouse is systematically netted in large numbers in the north of England, it should be easy enough for any of our Continental neighbours to repeat the experiment just described on a larger scale. Any such endeavour to naturalise the red grouse abroad should be extended over several seasons, and care should be taken to supply an adequate number of female birds. The latter are rather less hardy than the opposite sex, and are consequently more liable to perish on the journey than their male companions.

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It has been suggested that the eggs of the grouse could be exported to other countries. No doubt Count Kniphausen might very well have tried the experiment of introducing grouse eggs into the nests of greyhens. The eggs could be obtained in Yorkshire, and carried by water to their destination without incurring much risk. But very few sportsmen would allow eggs to be lifted on their moors, and any trafficking in the eggs of game birds gives an unfortunate stimulus to poaching practices. On the other hand, live grouse might safely be sent very long distances if packed in roomy cages and not overcrowded. The tops of the cages should be lined with canvas, so that the birds could not injure their heads by flying upwards. I remember a charming sand grouse which became extremely domesticated and familiar with the members of the household to which it belonged. It was fearful, however, of strangers, and when alarmed the poor bird almost always started upwards and struck the wooden roof of the cage. I mention this practical point, because I have found by experience that, obvious as it seems to be, it is in fact generally disregarded by those persons who send live grouse about the country. I feel sure that its recognition would materially reduce the risks of travelling.

Chapter II

The anxious time for those of us who happen to possess moors, or even to have leased those of others, arrives in the spring of the year, when the grouse, that have long since paired off with their respective mates, begin to occupy their stations for the summer and to go to nest. Without wishing to dogmatise too nicely, it is fair to say that almost every bird upon the moor occupies its peculiar station for many successive years, unless, of course, interfered with by human agency. It has been said, for example, that if an ornithologist wishes to explore any district in Lapland in search of the eggs of the rarer species, he should spend the time of a preliminary expedition in marking down the precise situations which each pair of any one species choose to occupy. A\T can all of us see the force of this remark even at home. Season after season witnesses to the faithfulness with which the curlew and its mate return to a long and desolate

c 2 strip of broken moorland lying under the shadow of the Coolin Hills ; the eggs are almost always laid about the same spot, and generation after generation of downy chicks enter into existence on the same patch of heather and rough grass. It is the same with the ptarmigan that nestles up in the lonely corrie above Sligachan. I have seen the nests of two seasons placed side by side on a slope of green turf, screened from observation by the same convenient boulders of rock. Indeed, I could tell you where to find the nest of the greenshank and many another rare bird, knowing from long intimacy with their haunts precisely the positions that these birds are likely to occupy in successive seasons. This principle applies as truly to the red grouse as to other birds, making allowance for the destruction of old females in the shooting season. On my own ground, at any rate, I have a very good idea where to look for grouse nests, although I never search for them intentionally, but only stumble upon them incidentally. No good sportsman would wish to organise a hunt for grouse nests. The grouse is a very particular bird, and often deserts her eggs if suddenly startled from her charge. Of course, there are many hen grouse which would rather allow themselves to be trodden upon than leave their eggs, and their faithful-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

ness to maternal duties is touching in its way. But the grouse is naturally a shy, timid creature, and will not willingly brook much interference. A grouse moor can hardly be kept too quiet in the breeding season. That is the reason why proprietors object so strongly to the intrusion of parties of tourists being forced upon them by any Radical legislation. Strangers do not, of course, intend the least in the world to do us any harm, but in point of fact they are pretty certain to scare some birds badly, and thus to diminish the supply of chicks hatched out. Some people may suggest that grouse breed so very early that the young are hatched long before the tourist season. The grouse is an early breeding bird in the north of England, and often begins to lay eggs during the month of March if the season happens to be warm and genial. In the north of Scotland incubation is much later. In the island of Skye, April 24 is a decidedly early date for a full clutch of grouse eggs.

May and June are the two months in which the majority of grouse hens go to nest. Although most of us have accustomed ourselves to speak of grouse nests, the expression is hardly exact, for the eggs are deposited in a mere scratching, scantily lined with a few dry stems of grass or twigs of heather. Some of the text-books, it is true, speak of feathers being used to line the nests of grouse, but I believe that any feathers found in a grouse’s nest have been accidentally dropped by the old bird. The nest is very often placed near a little burn, generally under the shelter of a tuft of heather. I have occasionally seen perfectly open nests, but they are very liable to be flooded. The grouse is one of the hardiest birds in existence, and frequently continues to sit upon her eggs after the nest has filled with water ; but the eggs are delicate, and are generally addled by such unfortunate immersion, notwithstanding the devotion exhibited by the old hen. It is a fallacy to suppose that grouse like to nest in very old heather. As a matter of fact they prefer younger plants as cover, choosing to avail themselves of the shelter of well-grown but not really old ling.

As to the number of eggs usually laid by grouse, my belief is that seven and eight are the numbers which occur most frequently Five is the smallest number that I have seen incubated, nor have I ever seen more than a dozen eggs in one nest. Indeed, to find more than ten eggs in a nest is quite an exceptional event, although probably most sportsmen have at one time or another come across large coveys of young birds. It often happens, however, that one or more eggs prove unfertile. There are records of as many as seventeen eggs being found in a single grouse nest, but I imagine that two hen birds had laid together. Mr. Henry Seebohm is perhaps as high an authority upon the eggs of British birds as any member of the B.O.U. He says that he has not found much variation in the size of eggs of the grouse. ‘ The ground-colour of the eggs of the grouse is usually a pale olive, spotted and blotched all over with dark red-brown. The spots are frequently so confluent as almost to conceal the ground-colour. In fresh-laid eggs the brown is often very red, in some instances almost approaching crimson. It appears to darken as it thoroughly dries, and sometimes almost approaches black. When fresh laid the colour is not very fast, and before the eggs are hatched the beauty of the original colouring is generally very much lessened by large spots coming off altogether, no doubt from the friction of the feathers when the bird is sitting. If the weather is wet when the bird begins to sit this is much more the case.