Gloomy Keepers
What of the grouse themselves this year? It is almost traditional among keepers to indulge in gloomy prognostica- tions. The worse the conditions have been, the greater honour to the keeper if the numbers exceed anticipation. And the tragedies are more obvious than the successes. All parental birds have an uncanny skill in concealing their broods, while fatalities are very plain to any active keeper. This professional gloom is, I am told, very widely spread this season ; but there are one or two districts, at any rate, as in the North of Perth, where coveys are so many and so large that the keepers have been forced into a confession that they expect a bumper year. Certain enemies of the grouse, especially the heather beetle, which destroys his food, have ceased their threats, and the weather, if wet and eccentric, has not been calamitous. Some speak, especially on coastal moors, of the grievous multipli- cation of marauding gulls. If golden eagle and peregrine falcon have taken a certain toll, these splendid birds may still be welcomed. It is due almost certainly to weather and other natural conditions, and not to the number of birds of prey that grouse have almost vanished from some of the Scottish islands. It remains a surprise that those who desire to reinock some of these islands have failed altogether to persuade owners of moors on the mainland -to let them have pairs of birds or clutches of eggs.
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