. Birds through the year . day of the grouse no mancan tell; but it is a better day for the shooting of grousethan the 1st of Sep-tember for shootingpartridges. It isvery seldom that thegrouse are not strongon the wing, andfew birds seem todevelop wing-powerquite so arehatched a month be-fore partridges, andare not strong fliers even by October 1st when they may beshot, though they seldom are. They are the slowest todevelop. Young partridges top the grasses in low flight atas young an age as the young moorhens slip over the surfaceof the water as if they were balls of fluff b
. Birds through the year . day of the grouse no mancan tell; but it is a better day for the shooting of grousethan the 1st of Sep-tember for shootingpartridges. It isvery seldom that thegrouse are not strongon the wing, andfew birds seem todevelop wing-powerquite so arehatched a month be-fore partridges, andare not strong fliers even by October 1st when they may beshot, though they seldom are. They are the slowest todevelop. Young partridges top the grasses in low flight atas young an age as the young moorhens slip over the surfaceof the water as if they were balls of fluff blown by the the grouse are even quicker than the partridges to attainreal power of wing ; and, of course, the young are veryearly fliers. One of those sights, not in themselves perhapsremarkable, which make a permanent impact on the mind,and remain ineffaceable, was a grouses nest almost alongsidean eider-ducks on a little isle in a West Highland loch. Theyoung from the one crossed the water, and the young of the. YOUNG GROUSE 224 SUMMER other took the water as if they were akin to air and waterfrom their birth. The shooting of grouse is one of the mostattractive of all sports beyond doubt. It is amazing at afirst experience to watch the coveys, flying as if they were ina picture with set wings, appear over the heather ridge, growto a vast size in your eyes as if on a sudden, and thenvanish behind you like a streak as if they had been dissipatedinto the moorland, and returned to the heather from whichthey were created. As so seen you are conscious chiefly ofa shape endowed with singular momentum tearing past youlike a shell in action. You note no colour. It is verydifferent to flush a cock grouse as you walk across a moorwith or without dogs. Every colour on his handsome bodyleaps to the eye, and you think what a splendid bird he is,too splendid to kill, belonging like the heather indisseverablyto the hill. He does, in fact, so belong in a very realsense. The red grous
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirdspi, bookyear1922
