xvn. GROUSE SHOOTING (PART //), I OVER DOGS' 297 



to make your bag a good one in regard to numbers. 

 Many thousand young grouse are killed on the 12th, 

 and for a week after that date, that have no right to 

 be fired at, from their diminutive size. I may safely 

 say that north of Inverness, especially after a late 

 spring, one-third of the grouse that are killed on the 

 l'2th are not fit to shoot, and would not be killed save 

 for the rivalry they are sacrificed to, or the anxiety of 

 the tenant of one moor to equal or excel the bag made 

 on another. Though we hear a great deal about the 

 grand sport of killing grouse over pointers (and fine 

 enough it is too, if the birds are full grown and 

 strong), still, such an incident as I have sketched oppo- 

 site (fig. 52a) is not quite unheard of in the north of 

 Scotland, on the 12th of August, should the spring 

 have been unfavourable to the young birds ! 



( N WALKING UP GROUSE WITHOUT POINTERS 

 OR SETTERS 



This system, as regards n-here to find the birds, 

 and lime to disperse them and follow them into covert 

 or to their feeding grounds, is precisely the same in 

 principle as when pointers or setters are used. The 

 only difference (a vast one) is, that instead of your 



- finding the grouse for you, you have to find them 

 yourself, and to walk mechanically up and down a 

 moor in narrow beats for the purpose. Still, this 



