┌─────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┬─────────────────┐
│ Date. │ Guns. │ Brace in the │Brace in the best│
│ │ │ day. │ two days. │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Sept. 6, 1872 │ 13 │ 1313 │ │
│ Sept. 3, 1890 │ 8 │ 819 │ │
│ Sept. 9, 1891 │ 8 │ 630 │ │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Aug. 30, 1893 │ 9 │ 1324 │ 2125½ │
│ Sept. 1, 1893 │ 9 │ 801½ │ 〃 │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Aug. 29, 1894 │ 9 │ 1007 │ 1694 │
│ Aug. 31, 1894 │ 9 │ 687 │ 〃 │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Sept. 4, 1895 │ 8 │ 624 │ │
│ Aug. 26, 1896 │ 9 │ 1090 │ │
│ Aug. 25, 1897 │ 9 │ 1006 │ │
│ Aug. 24, 1898 │ 9 │ 1103½ │ │
│ Aug. 30, 1899 │ 9 │ 1013 │ │
│ Aug. 29, 1900 │ 9 │ 586 │ │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Sept. 4, 1901 │ 9 │ 712 │ 1447 │
│ Sept. 25, 1901 │ 9 │ 735 │ 〃 │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Aug. 27, 1902 │ 9 │ 693 │ 950 │
│ Aug. 29, 1902 │ 9 │ 257 │ 〃 │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Aug. 26, 1903 │ 9 │ 703½ │ 1188 │
│ Aug. 28, 1903 │ 9 │ 484½ │ 〃 │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Aug. 24, 1904 │ 9 │ 1371½ │ 1777 │
│ Aug. 26, 1904 │ 9 │ 405½ │ 〃 │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ Aug. 30, 1905 │ 9 │ 872 │ 1476 │
│ Sept. 1, 1905 │ 9 │ 604 │ 〃 │
├─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ 1906 │ │ 660 │(roughly) │
└─────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┴─────────────────┘
Writing in 1888, Lord Walsingham said he thought that the great increase
of grouse was to be attributed to the burning of the heather in
Yorkshire during the previous twenty-five years. But no moors the author
saw in Yorkshire about that time could bear comparison for regular
burning with the moor of Dunbeath, in Caithness, where the strips were
as regular and as well defined as the different crops in a market
garden; and again, about 1875, the author went over Bowes moor to
inspect for a possible purchaser, and he never saw any heather so badly
neglected for want of burning. Although there were very few grouse there
at that time, this was obviously due to the disease, for there had been
any number of them three seasons before.
Driving the grouse at Moy Hall moors was started in a partial manner,
without butts, in 1869, and the driving done between then and 1872 was
limited to the birds round the corn-fields, and could have had no effect
on the stock.
In 1871 the bag was 2836 grouse.
In 1872 the bag was 3002 grouse.
Between 1876 and 1879 no driving was done there, but in 1879 there were
103 grouse killed in six drives on the 1st of September.
In that year the kill was 5172 grouse, when the bag was assisted by
driving, but the preservation had not been so assisted.
In 1888 there were killed 5822 grouse by means of dogs first and driving
afterwards, and in the next season, which was a bad one, dogs were used
for the last time.
In 1891 there were shot 3612 grouse.
In 1892 the bag was 3513 grouse.
In 1893 there were killed 4480 grouse.
In 1894 the season produced 4563 grouse.
In 1895 the total fell to 2511 grouse.
In 1896 it fell lower, to 1402 grouse.
In 1897 it touched lower, to 1131 grouse.
In 1898 it began to rise to 1943 grouse.
In 1899 there were shot 3416 grouse.
In 1900 the bag was 6092 grouse.
In 1901 the apex was 7127 grouse.
Since that year the season’s bags have not been published, and it is
believed that they fell off very much until 1905, when there was a good
recovery, but not a record, and disappointment occurred again in 1906.
From these figures we are not able to gather that driving and no dog
work has acted as a means of preservation and an increase of the stock,
but that it has enabled the grouse to be killed when they were there, as
they undoubtedly were in 1879, when the driving was so little understood
that it did not materially assist the bags for the season, as may be
gathered from the bag for the day quoted above. Nothing can be gathered
from these bags to suggest that anything like a remedy for the
stagnation spoken of has been discovered, and we hope in vain, year by
year, to see that advance of from 400 to 800 per cent. spoken of by Lord
Walsingham, eighteen years ago, in regard to Yorkshire.
It has been already pointed out that by draining a moor one may often
add a third to its heather-bearing land, and also that by removing a
sheep to the acre one conserves about ten times the heather food a
grouse eats. Yet neither of these methods has made very much difference
anywhere. Both have done something to add to the stock in places, and
both have also been disappointing in other places. Surely there must be
some reason that has not only never been discovered, but has not even
been looked for. It has been shown that were it only a question of
heather food, the removal of sheep, where they are one to an acre, would
multiply the grouse capacity of the moors by ten times, and the author
believes that the majority of moors have on them, even when they carry
sheep, ten times the heather the grouse require. If the former, to say
nothing of the latter, is approximately true, then there must be
something besides heather the grouse require, and the absence of which,
in quantities, prevents their increase beyond two to an acre even on the
_most favourable_ moors.
There is no doubt from the above facts that there is some such want, but
what it is the author can only speculate upon. It appears likely that
what is wanted by all young grouse, as by all young animals of other
kinds, is proteid. Young birds of all kinds take it in the form of
insects, or artificial substitutes. That little grouse begin at once to
eat heather is true, but it has never been proved that they can be
reared on heather and nothing else. On the other hand, it _has_ been
proved that they can be reared without heather, provided they get plenty
of insect food. They appear to be almost the easiest of game birds to
rear, provided they have leave to help themselves to the insects of the
fields, or are supplied with crissel and ants’ eggs by hand. For these
reasons the author has arrived at the opinion that, provided the young
grouse could be supplied with proteid (insects) for the first three
weeks of life, the heather is sufficient to support ten times the
numbers found upon the moors in most cases. Of course this could only be
done by hand rearing of the birds. But as the grouse seem to lay more
readily in confinement than partridges, and as these latter most
particular birds have, by the French system, been doubled and doubled
again, there seems to be no reason why grouse should not be increased in
the same way.
It may be said that disease would stop anything of the kind, but those
who advocate the increase of grouse to shoot by the decrease of the
parent stock have, it is to be hoped, had their innings. It can be
proved that where breeding grouse are kept up to the highest point,
there also they are the most healthy.
The author has doubts whether it is desirable to increase the hand
rearing of game; but in a book on shooting and game preservation the
ethics of sport are not practical if they limit production in any way.
The red grouse (_Lagopus scoticus_) may be shot from the morning of the
12th of August to the evening of the 10th of December. Heather burning
is legal at all times in England, but only from 1st of November to 10th
of April in Scotland, which is another means by which an Act of
Parliament has damaged the interests of the grouse shooter, since it
generally happens that not enough heather burning can be done in the
winter months, and September and October are quite as necessary burning
months as March itself.