xx. GROUSE SHOOTING (PART V\ ' DRIVING' 333 



so long as the grouse are sent over the guns, nothing 

 further is required, though unless they are followed 

 up and redriven over another line of shelters, single 

 drives are rarely productive, as the birds are so 

 liable to fly in numbers together, which never means 

 that a fair proportion are killed ; it is during the third 

 or even fourth drive of the same broods or packs that 

 the guns play havoc with them.* Of course, single 

 drives are sometimes obligatory, especially on moors 

 that have not the level plains and broad valleys that 

 are always so favourable to grouse driving. 



For instance, you may have a tract of moor that 

 slopes downhill for a mile or so ; now you can easily 

 drive the birds down the slope over the guns ; but 



* If through bad luck or ill management a large pack of grouse 

 escapes from a drive and flies off to a neighbouring part of the moor, 

 send half a dozen men to drive it back again. The birds will be 

 quite ready to return if the men appear beyond them, and do not 

 show themselves till they have walked on the right side of the pack 

 for driving it homewards. A truant pack of grouse that is induced 

 to return to the ground about to be driven, may easily mean fifty 

 brace of birds to the bag, and are well worth trying to save to the 

 drive. 



In the same way you may often bring grouse into a drive before 

 it is commenced ; for example, if you are about to drive a valley 

 bounded by hills, it is probable the slopes of the hills contain a 

 number of birds that will have left the lower ground to bask, or to 

 rest on drier soil. It will repay the trouble in such a case as this to 

 drive the grouse off the high ground into the plain between the hills 

 a short time previous to the shelters being occupied by the shooters. 

 You will then have a larger number of birds under your control to 

 afterwards drive to and fro over the guns, and they will, when driven, 

 probably remain within the drive rather than pass the flankers and 

 pointsmen to ascend the hills again. 



