Looking After Grouse My friend the gamekeeper had been round
the moorland road in his little car. It was part of his patrol, he said, now that the grouse are more plentiful than in the war-years. He looked for poachers, and informed me that ragged clothes and an old shotgun were not the signs. His main trouble was caused by " gentlemen" with cars and two-two rifles. A man with a gun in his car looked for an easy shot, and the grouse that carne down from the heather were an inviting target. A rifle made hafdly any noise, and the whole business was quick. I remarked that grouse did seem to be fond of the road, and he explained that they frequented the roadside for the purpose of picking up grit, an essential to their good health as it is to any farmyard bird. " I won't tell you the names of some of the respectable ones I've caught up here," he said, " but I only catch them once. A professional poacher is afraid of the law. An amateur is more afraid of the humiliation of being caught. Once he has been caught he goes some- where else, and saves embarrassment for all concerned."
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