XYIII. GROUSE SHOOTING (PART III], ' DRIVING' 301 



Now the English grouse shooter has to commence 

 killing his birds just at the period of their existence 

 when the tenant of a Scotch moor often has to give 

 them up as unapproachable ; for with the former the 

 birds are wild and strong from the first day of the 

 season, if they have bred fairly well ; with the latter, 

 the broods generally are backward and tame on the 

 l'2th, and will lie to dog and gun till they are full 

 grown, after which date they become more wary 

 every day, and the shooter's sport with pointers or 

 setters is then soon over for the season. 



We constantly hear the question asked, ' Why are 

 grouse wilder now than they were in days gone by ? ' 

 Well ! our ancestors could not, for one thing, fire a 

 dozen shots as fast as they pleased a regular fusillade 

 to spread panic over the heather! Nor could they 

 encourage so large a stock of birds, as the old cocks 

 and barren hens (the ruin of a moor) very frequently 

 escaped whilst the guns of those days were being 

 slowly charged down the muzzle. Nor did our fore- 

 fathers kill the hawks, stoats, and weasels as perse- 

 veringly as we do,* or limit the number of sheep on a 



* It is often said that falcons do good service to a grouse moor 

 by killing the weak birds that are likely to breed badly. This is all 

 nonsense to anyone who knows a falcon's night ; she may take a 

 wounded grouse lagging behind its companions, but she can just as 

 easily knock lifeless, as she descends like a ' bolt from the blue,' the 

 gtrongest cock grouse that ever crowed, and a hawk certainly prefers 



