298 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTEK xvn. 



style of shooting is successfully practised in England 

 and Wales in certain localities. Walking without dogs 

 is utterly useless early in the season in Scotland gene- 

 rally, as the birds lie so close in the far north when 

 young that they cannot then be found without pointers 

 or setters, though these need not be of a very high 

 class for the purpose.* When grouse pack and become 

 so wild in Scotland that you only spoil your dogs by 

 trying to work them, then four or five guns walking 

 in line against the wind is sometimes an effective 

 manner of making a bag, though under such condi- 

 tions, could the guns have the birds driven to them, 

 many more would be killed, the sport would be better, 

 and, as the old birds would be thinned down (they 

 always are if driving is practised), the moor would be 

 benefited. 



* When the grouse in Scotland are full grown and strong, it is 

 another matter, and it takes a good man and good dogs to bag them, 

 and a month after they are full grown in October, for instance 

 there is not one moor in twenty, even in Scotland, whereon the birds 

 can be killed successfully over dogs ; for, though you may, of course, 

 kill a few by firing long wild shots, you will not obtain nearly a fair 

 proportion of what you see. Your dogs, however well trained they 

 are, will continually flush the birds out of shot, and you will be as 

 often firing at their tails as they skim away at forty to fifty yards 

 distance, a by no means satisfactory or sporting procedure. 



