The heath hen flutters, pious fraud, to lead
The hot pursuing spaniel far away.”
In America we call this heath hen the pinnated, ruffled, or Canada grouse.
The game bird which is peculiarly associated with Scotland is the “grouse.” The word means literally “speckled,” “grizzly,” or “gray,” and when popularly applied includes almost all of the rough-footed scratchers that wear feathers and have wings. The red grouse, of old, was called “moor fowl,” or “moor game,” and in common speech is said even to influence legislation; for in popular tradition, Parliament adjourns on the day when the law allows this bird to be shot. On the 12th of August, throughout Scotland, one is likely to see in the tailor shops and in many stores sprigs of heather decorating the cloth or other merchandise. In the show windows will probably be seen pictures of grouse hunters at work with their guns, and the graceful birds rising “up from the valley of death” to fly, if possible, beyond the reach of man. An immense number of Scottish acres are set apart as grouse moors. When there are no rocks, bushes, gullies, or other natural features for a covert, short bits of wall or lunettes of stone are built, beyond which the hunters hide. These make a prominent feature in many a square mile of desolation.
Though the guns are not by law allowed to blaze at the birds until August 12 is fully come, yet at the railway stations one may see, loaded on the first train of the day before, hampers packed full of this material for enjoyable dinners, to appear in the London markets, with startling if not legal punctuality.
It is said that the red grouse is rarely or never found away from the heather, on which it chiefly subsists. On the contrary, the willow grouse, with which we are acquainted in the New World, where heather, in the strict sense, is unknown, prefers the shrubby growths of berry-bearing plants, and is found numerously among the willows and branches on the higher levels and mountain slopes. The snow-white ptarmigan is the cousin to the red grouse.
It seems strange, at first, that the heather does not bulk more largely in Scottish imagination, as shadowed forth in poetry and popular song. Yet there is one poem by Jean Glover, entitled “O’er the muir amang the heather,” which tells of coming through “the craigs of Kyle,” and how she charmed the poet’s heart, who then swears:—
“By sea and sky she shall be mine,
The bonnie lass amang the heather
O’er the muir,” etc.