Small Game Shooting 291 



upon the Pacific Slope has withheld criticism upon 

 this subject. Grouse drives, partridge drives, pheas- 

 ant drives provoke bilious comment. It would be 

 impossible here to write a full defence of methods 

 approved by the cream of English and Continen- 

 tal sportsmen, but it may be observed that driven 

 birds are never easy, but on the contrary very dif- 

 ficult shooting. They fly at a high rate of speed ; 

 if hit, they are generally killed, and they present 

 an infinite variety of shot. The old-fashioned 

 sportsman liked to see his dogs work — and who 

 does n't ? — but modern agriculture, which strips the 

 fields of stubble, has made this form of sport impos- 

 sible in England. More, the old-fashioned sports- 

 man, accustomed to shoot his birds from behind, 

 would be sure to miss a rocketing pheasant driven 

 at him. Indeed, so far as these big and rather 

 clumsy birds are concerned, the only sportsmanlike 

 way to kill them is by driving, and when they are 

 flying over tall trees with a wind behind them it 



and any English sportsman could have told him that the pheasants 

 at Highclere do not present easy shots. These birds, that in his 

 ignorance the writer alludes to as barndoor-fowls, come out of the 

 Highclere coverts high up and flying as fast as it is possible for 

 pheasants to fly. To make such a bag as Mr. Muirhead records, 

 the most extraordinary skill and endurance on the part of the guns 

 are required. If the old-fashioned sportsman attempted to fire off 

 as many cartridges as Lord de Grey did on this occasion he would 

 probably be taken home on a litter, paralysed in his muscles and a 

 prey to a splitting headache. Mr. Muirhead and gentlemen like 

 him who write of English institutions should be more careful. 

 The international misapprehension of so many subjects which Mr. 

 Muirhead deprecates is largely due — as I have said before— to 

 ignorance. Who would blame Mr. Lummis should he accept Mr. 

 Muirhead's indictment of battue-shooting as " confirmation strong " 

 of his own published opinions ? 



