154 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



Circus " — see the gunmakers' advertisements, which there 

 appears no palpable reason to discredit. 



Nothing" derogatory to "driving," as such, is herein 

 implied or intended. Driving becomes legitimate in 

 proportion as game cannot otherwise be handled satis- 

 factorily ; and, in such conditions, affords the smartest 

 of shooting and a delightful phase of sport. The objec- 

 tion is that it should be regarded and practised as the 

 sole means, and resorted to when game can, and should, 

 be obtained by field-craft instead of merely by marksman- 

 ship. Driving, as a branch and an adjunct of the fowler's 

 craft, was practised a century ago and more. In the 

 many clever drawings of grouse-shooting in Weardale 

 and Hexhamshire left by my grandfather, Joseph Craw- 

 hall, are several that depict "drives." This was about 

 1820-30. There were no butts in those days: the 

 gunners are concealed behind walls, or crouching in 

 burns and in "brocks" or peat-ravines. 



In one of these drawings, it is interesting to add, a 

 skein of wild-geese is shown coming overhead. 



Some of these formed the illustrations to my grand- 

 father's Grouse-shooting; made Qtiite Easy, by "Geoffrey 

 Gorcock," privately printed, though — according to the 

 title-page — the book was ostensibly "published at Kilhope 

 Cross — on August 12th, 1827." The said Kilhope Cross 

 is one of the loftiest points of the northern moorland, being 

 2206 feet above sea-level and situate at the juncture of the 

 three counties of Durham, Northumberland, and Cumber- 

 land. Not far therefrom, namely, on Linesketh-fell, in 

 Weardale, the present writer, two generations later, killed 

 his first grouse on August 12th, 1866. 



It may be of interest to add that only at about the 

 period named was game-preserving generally practised in 



