The shooter who wants grouse driving and he who wishes for shooting over
dogs are by no means best suited in the same districts. The distribution
of grouse must be mentioned before any just estimation of the causes of
the different manners, habits, and instincts of the grouse can be
formed.
The birds have one special altitude which suits them best in each
locality, but this particular altitude differs with latitude and
longitude.
Where the grouse are best served by high altitudes is in the
south-eastern border of their distribution. They are at home on the top
of the Peak district of Derbyshire, and exist much lower down. Farther
north and farther west their best moors are lower, and this goes on
until in Caithness the best elevation for the grouse is only about 100
feet above sea-level, as it is also in Argyllshire. Over all the
intermediate country, between parallel lines pointing north-east and
south-west, the grouse are best served by an intermediate elevation of
moorland decreasing towards the north-west. They exist in large numbers,
but not the largest numbers, above and below this elevation. This is
generally true, and although it would be easy to point to moors a few
hundred feet out of the theoretical best elevation that are better than
others exactly in it, there are then always local conditions that favour
such moors, and these are not to be found on the moors in the better
elevations on the same parallels. The moors of Dartmoor and the heaths
of Norfolk are both on the same north-east to south-west parallels.
Probably neither of them are for the most part high enough to suit
grouse in that latitude and longitude. It must be remembered that if red
grouse are, as is believed to be the case, the same bird as the willow
grouse, or rype, they are of Arctic origin, and, like other organisms of
that origin, survive out of the Arctic regions only at certain higher
altitudes as latitude decreases. The lower Dartmoor is obviously too low
for them, but possibly places could be discovered on the moor where they
would do well. The lower moors there are smothered with the bell heather
(_erica_), and this is not the food of the grouse. The real “ling”
(_calluna_) of the grouse food grows on Dartmoor much more scarcely, and
although there is plenty for old grouse, it is not easy to see how
chicks could get about to find enough of their natural food amongst
what, to them, would be forests of useless vegetation—namely, the bell
heather. On the South Wales moors the grouse are not very plentiful; but
the species is better served in North Wales, which is on the same
north-east by south-west parallel line as Yorkshire.
It is a curious fact that these parallels also supply an index to the
wildness or otherwise of the grouse, but not exactly. It would be more
nearly correct to say that this is true except so far as it is modified
by insular conditions. What is meant is that the parallel lines hold
good except as regard the islands where the grouse lie better than their
north-westwardness would suggest from the behaviour of the grouse in the
same parallels on the mainland.
It has been said that the wet climate makes birds lie: this is obviously
wrong, because they do so in Caithness, which is the driest county in
Scotland by the statistics.
It has also lately been repeatedly said that the Gulf Stream makes them
lie, but this also is surely wrong, because the one part most affected
by the Gulf Stream is the Port Patrick promontory in Wigtonshire, where
the author has found the grouse as wild as in Aberdeenshire. Yet in
Arran and in Islay, but slightly to the north-west of this point, they
lie like stones _all the year_. They do so also on the west coast of
Argyllshire, on that of Ross-shire, and in the whole of Sutherland- and
Caithness-shires, and also in the Lews and that group, in Skye and in
the Orkneys.
Elevation makes no difference to their instinctive habits, which are
clearly in-bred in the birds, and whether in the same districts grouse
are found at 2000 or at 100 feet above sea-level their instinctive
habits will be always those of the district, and are not varied by hill
and strath.
What, then, is it that makes some birds lie for security all the season,
and others fly for security as soon as they can use their wings? It has
been said that if you drive birds one year you will always have to drive
them, because it alters their characters. The author held to that faith
for years, but has lived to see the error of his imaginings. It is very
natural to suppose, if you teach the parents to fly for life, that the
children will inherit the same habit also. But although the author would
be far from asserting, as some naturalists do, that life-acquired habits
are _never_ transmitted, he knows that they are not often transmitted,
and thinks that the growing, or rather grown, wildness of Yorkshire
grouse can be amply explained on the Darwinian theory of the survival
and breeding of the fittest.
Early in the nineteenth century the celebrated Colonel Hawker found the
grouse so wild that he took himself back to Hampshire, voting grouse in
August a fraud. He only shot a few that sat better than the rest, which
implied that all those that sat worse than the rest were saved for
breeding. This natural selection of the fittest went on for another
fifty years, and then people took to driving grouse because they could
get them in large quantities no other way. That seems simple enough;
fifty or one hundred generations of selection of the wildest for
breeding, and of the youngest for the pot, made the Yorkshire grouse
breed earlier and breed wilder birds than before.
There is a natural and obvious apparent difficulty in accepting this
theory, but it is only apparent and not real. It is this:—Why did not
the grouse get wild in the same way and degree in the Highlands and the
Islands and in Caithness-shire? The reason why they did not is probably
that the Yorkshire grouse began by being strong enough and early enough
to all rise in a brood by the 12th of August. Consequently, the early
broods were saved. The Caithness-shire grouse and those of the Lews were
later, and never were all ready to rise together in a brood by the 12th
of August, and consequently the most backward were saved, since both
barrels would be discharged at those first up, and the crouchers escaped
while the shot was being rammed home in the muzzle-loaders.
If this is the true explanation of the difference of habit of the birds,
its root cause can be seen at a glance every autumn on the heather—that
is to say, its root cause, when the shot gun was first used to kill
grouse upon the wing, was in the state of the heather. The bloom of this
plant indicates the period when it started to shoot, and that is a
fortnight earlier in Yorkshire than in Caithness and the Lews. It may be
three weeks, or even more, but it is at least a fortnight.
The starting to bloom has no influence directly on the grouse nesting,
but the starting of the plant to shoot has; and therefore if the
survival of the fittest theory is accepted, all the wildness of the
south-eastern grouse, and the hiding habit, or natural instinct, of the
north-western grouse is explained by the state of forwardness of
vegetation in the districts two hundred years ago, which in all
probability was relatively what it is now.
Of course, what will make wild grouse lie now has not much to do with
the matter. Falcons will make them lie, eagles will generally make them
fly, as also will ravens. The birds are not very discriminating either,
and make mistakes, for they frequently lie well under an artificial
kite, and fly away if they see a heron in the sky. Probably they mistake
one for a peregrine and the other for an eagle. But there do not appear
to be enough peregrines anywhere now to permanently affect the habits of
grouse. Probably when there were lots of them all grouse did lie well;
we know that they did so, even in October, in the Duke of Gordon’s
country in the time of Colonel Thornton’s tour in the Highlands, about
1803. But the peregrines have not ceased to exist merely in patches of
country, and certainly not in the same degree as the south-east line of
grouse distribution is remote or the reverse. It is clearly because of
the falcons that the grouse acquired the habit of lying and hiding from
danger in the first instance everywhere alike. That is not the question,
but how it happened that when the danger ceased to exist in magnitude
one lot of grouse preserved the ancient instinct and the other lot lost
it.
Grouse that lie for protection are often spoken of as “tame,” but this
term hardly truly expresses the primitive instincts found in the grouse
of Ireland and the west and north of Scotland. Grey-lag geese in
Caithness, nine hundred and ninety-nine times in a thousand, will fly at
the sight of man; but once, at least, a grey-lag was observed cowering
under an artificial kite, and this was not because he was tamer than
usual, but because he was more scared and more wild than ever before, or
since—for he was shot.
Most shooters in Scotland have doubtless observed that a little bad
weather sends a lot of old grouse on to the tops of the hills, not on
the high ptarmigan tops, but on to the bare places on the hills
immediately above heather slopes. There they would not dare to go if
there were a few peregrines about, because on such ground they are at
the long-winged hawk’s mercy. It was not until between 1840 and 1860
that much headway was made in Scotland against the hawks, and it is
quite probable that the grouse never would have acquired a taste for the
“tops” if the peregrines had not been killed, and the present trouble
about killing the old cocks would never have occurred in Scotland. This
subject is referred to at greater length and in more aspects in the
chapter dealing with grouse bags.
In Yorkshire, however, it seems obvious that the grouse were made wild
by Act of Parliament—that is, by the fixing of a date for the opening of
shooting which suited Scotland but did not suit Yorkshire at that time.
As everyone knows, there are doubts in the Highlands of Scotland as to
the best means of shooting a moor for the benefit of its next season’s
stock. From a conversation the author had in 1905 with Captain Tomasson,
who is the most successful of preservers in Scotland by the almost
exclusive driving method, the writer gathered that on one or two points
Captain Tomasson could criticise some articles that the author had
previously written, and do it in a manner to throw more light on the
subject, and for this reason he asked the tenant of Hunthill if he would
write a criticism of those articles, handling them in as severe a manner
as possible. The latter very kindly consented, and the following letter
is the result; but the ever-present want of space has not permitted more
than an outline of his views, which more elaboration would make very
much more interesting than this all too short letter is, or could be,
from the nature of the case. In the next chapter the author has
endeavoured to repeat the substance of the articles already referred to,
in order that as much grouse lore as is practicable may be stored in
this little work on so many shooting subjects. The articles referred to
were entitled “The Difference of Effect in Driving Grouse in England and
in Scotland,” or some such title, and it was not sought to be proved
that driving was bad for Scotland, but merely that whereas driving
increased Yorkshire grouse by 800 or more per cent., it has not done
anything for Scotland. This is not to prove it bad, but merely to
suggest that what has been gained in one way has been lost in another.
That partial driving has reduced disease in Scotland is not likely,
because we find that it is no more prevalent in Caithness, where there
is no driving, than in the Highlands where there is. Besides that, can
we expect it to do so when it failed so lamentably in Yorkshire, which
was much more “driven” in and before 1872 than Scotland is now, and yet
this practice was followed there by an outbreak of disease in 1873 and
1874 that has never been paralleled since? The author’s opinion is that
bags made in these days truly indicate the stock of grouse; but when, in
1872, there were 10,600 grouse killed over dogs by three parties of two
each on Glenbuchat, averaging 100 brace a day to each party (a fact
which the owner, Mr. Barclay, has been kind enough to give me), there
must then have been enough grouse left to have doubled the bag had
driving occurred afterwards. The birds would not lie to be shot then in
the middle of September, as everyone knows.
It may be fairly asked, “What is the use of double numbers if you cannot
shoot them?” But that raises a very broad issue, and what the author has
in mind is that overshooting now is far worse than want of attention was
then. It is stated in a pamphlet issued by the Grouse Commission, that
one acre of good young heather is enough to keep a covey of grouse for
the season. As a matter of fact the moor is lucky when it rears half a
grouse to the acre instead of a whole brood. In the author’s belief
there is no reason past human powers to remove, why the acre should not
breed the brood instead of the half-grouse. In fact, he has taken up
this question in order to draw attention not only to the fact that
season’s bags are smaller than they were in spite of improvements of all
sorts, but to try and induce a search for a reason for this state of
things in a contrary direction to that being taken. For this purpose he
would refer possible readers to his chapter on “Game Birds’ Diseases,”
and would also call to mind the very suggestive phase of wild life from
Africa—namely, that when antelopes, buffalo, and zebra were in countless
millions, nothing in the shape of disease retarded their increase, but
as soon as they came to exist in isolation and small flocks, disease
stepped in and well-nigh exterminated them. That the micro-organisms of
some diseases are often present in the blood of the big game animals and
do them _no_ injury, although they may be injurious to other animals, is
also very suggestive of what may be possible in the future on our grouse
moors—that is, if the practice of devoting them exclusively to grouse is
persisted in.
“WOODTHORPE, NOTTINGHAM
“_October 2nd, 1906_
“DEAR MR. BUCKELL,—You ask me what I think as to your views _re_ grouse
driving in Scotland, and the conversations we had together. I do not
like to attempt to criticise, as I agree with you in nearly everything.
“As far as I can see, the point is this, whether the introduction of
driving has resulted in larger bags in Scotland than in previous years?
The case that you so ably put forward and support with so many
industriously collected facts and with such originality resolves itself
into the statement that there are not now so many grouse in Scotland as
there were in the years 1872 and 1888, which you rightly regard as the
maximum seasons during the dogging period. I think the comparison is
hardly a fair one, as of course you have taken the very best years in
the memory of man. What my experience shows used to happen in the old
years was that on these moors (many of them of much larger area than at
present) very large stocks of grouse were left in favourable years, and
these were augmented as the seasons went on till at the end of the
seventh year or so there was undoubtedly a very large stock of grouse
left. Big bags were made, but it was entirely hopeless with the means
then at one’s command to cope with those great hordes of grouse; then
came the disease, and swept everything clean away. What we contend has
been the principal advantage of driving in Scotland is that we are
enabled to control the outbreaks of disease to a greater extent than
formerly—that is, we kill by driving the older birds, leaving young and
vigorous stock; that we are enabled to keep the birds within moderate
dimensions; and that though we may not be able to have so many birds on
our moors as in 1872 and 1888 (nor is it desirable), yet, taking the run
of the seasons through, we kill more birds off our ground than was the
case in previous years. The seasons average better, but they are not as
they used to be in the old days—three good seasons, three very bad ones,
and one moderate one. Now there are two moderate seasons and probably
five good ones. For myself, I should go much farther than this. It is
only a series of accidents, in my opinion, that has prevented the grouse
stocks in Scotland from being quite as heavy as they were in 1888.
“Undoubtedly the grouse seasons run in cycles through some mysterious
law which we are at present unable to fathom. Towards the end of the
period one sees birds on the moors getting to look shabby and bad. In
the old dogging days immense quantities of these birds were left all
over the place. Now we are able to kill them off by driving and working
the burnsides. In the non-driving era in stepped the disease and swept
everything off the moor, and we had to wait in patience till things
recovered. Nowadays we shoot a little harder than usual, kill off all
the bad birds, and leave a fair stock, which with easy shooting soon
comes round again. For some years we have been unfortunate with these
periods. Thus in 1894 a very large stock of birds was left, which in the
ordinary course would have been the foundation of record seasons in the
next two years, but the terrible winter of 1895, which killed so many
thousands of grouse, spoilt this period, and things had to begin afresh,
though very large stocks had worked up again by 1901. With the terrible
storm of the spring of 1902, which practically destroyed most of the
older heather on the East Coast, the period was again prevented from
giving the results it should have done. We have now got up the stocks
again to very large dimensions, and with luck and the absence of disease
should break all records in the next seasons.
“I take it that the more food there is for grouse the better. The
evidence is that a grouse makes several thousand pecks of heather each
day before he gets his full supply of food. I think the bird only feeds
for a very limited time each night, and the shorter the distance he has
to go for his food the better, and as he feeds mostly just as it is
getting dusk he is not very well able to distinguish between good and
bad heather, and often gets a craw full of stuff which does not agree
with him. If you notice (as it is on most of the Welsh moors) where the
sheep have grazed the heather up to a wire fence, on the other side of
the fence the heather is perfectly good, and every grouse will be found
feeding on it. If through the late spring or from other causes one
cannot get a portion of the moor burnt, that part will invariably have
less grouse on it than where there is young heather.
“I do not think sheep of a certain class do much harm on a grouse moor
if they are properly looked after. The trouble is that shepherds do not
take enough pains to keep things quiet. Breeding ewes are very bad when
the lambing takes place on the heather, as the shepherd must be
continually moving about among them, and disturbing the ground at the
very time the grouse are nesting. Provided sheep are lambed on the green
fields below the heather, and provided the shepherd is careful and goes
about his work quietly, I think sheep do no great harm; and undoubtedly
the paths they make through the heather are an advantage to the grouse,
which are then enabled to move their broods about more easily. There is
much more heather where there are no sheep, and the more heather you
have the more grouse there will be. On a driving moor especially sheep
are better off the ground. The long line of drivers move the sheep a
great deal, and in hot weather this is bad for the sheep. One can leave
big masses of birds on the march secure in the knowledge that there is
no shepherd to come along and put them into a neighbouring moor. The
wire fences, which are a necessity where sheep are present, are, of
course, death-traps for grouse.—Yours sincerely,
“W. H. TOMASSON”