GROUSE AND PARTRIDGE 217 



conditions are favourable, the newer are supplant- 

 ing the older methods. 



The moors of Aberdeenshire, and Inverness-shire 

 are those principally devoted to driving in the 

 north. Several of the moors in the latter county 

 are large enough to accommodate parties of from 

 half a dozen to a dozen guns, and can be made to 

 yield as many as 500 brace in a day. The highest 

 record for one day in the present year, was 375 

 brace, shot on the moor of the Macintosh of Moy. 

 Ayrshire, in the west country, comes second in the 

 race, with bags of 250, and even 300 brace a day. 



The methods by which those numbers are piled 

 up are totally deficient in picturesqueness, and even 

 in originality. It is the background which lends 

 a certain impressiveness, not naturally belonging 

 to them. The frightened grouse, roused from the 

 heather by a shouting crowd, seem, in the language 

 of a sympathiser, to grow mysteriously out of the 

 rock in front. 



"The great secret of success in driving is to 

 select those places in the flight of birds where they 

 can best be killed. The author is in favour of 

 massing the guns, and making the birds fly as 

 concentrated as possible. All the ' butts ' should be 

 in a dead straight line, should be close together, and 



