 Most Shetland crofts would have at least one grice kept on grazing lands, but they would often roam across adjacent farmland, rooting up crops and occasionally killing and eating newborn lambs.According to geologist Samuel Hibbert, who wrote an account of the islands in 1822, although the grice was "small and scrawny", its meat made "excellent hams" when cured.Islanders also made footballs from grice bladder, and even windowpanes from their intestines, by stretching the membrane over a wooden frame until it was sufficiently thin to allow light to pass through.