PARENTAL GROUSE.
When we hear, as we hear to-day, that the grouse have done well, or the partridges, or even the wild pheasants, we may well think first of the genius and devotion of the breeding pair. The partridge and grouse parents are conspicuously parental. They will fight to the death against birds of prey : I know Of one such fight between partridges and carrion crows ; and, apropos, of one case where a turkey kept a fox at bay. This year the grouse have been forced to fetch and find water. The watchfulness is continuous, against vermin and other enemies. Wet and starvation are never-ceasing threats. The parents conceal the young so well that even keepers very often have little knowledge whether the season is good or bad.
Incidentally, they generally say it is bad. Probably the red grouse, the one wild bird peculiar to Britain, has to make longer local migrations than other birds, owing to damaged
heather in the uplands, and distance from water. But the partridge has a family of twice the size ; and .I have watched one this year that still keeps its full tally of sixteen young. It has done better than the artificially protected domestic hen.
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