342 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



If you wait to pick your shots, when grouse come 

 in numbers and fly like arrows, you may not bag 

 nearly so many birds during the day as will another 

 man, perhaps an inferior marksman to yourself, who 

 fires at every bird there is a fair chance of killing, 

 and who has trained himself to use his gun with the 

 rapidity necessary in grouse driving. The man who 

 fires twenty-one cartridges, and drops seven grouse, 

 or one in three, is in reality a letter and far more 

 useful grouse- driving shot than the man who, with 

 an equal number of opportunities (had he but taken 

 them), fired ten shots and killed five birds, or one in 

 two ! 



The grand secret of killing driven grouse is to 

 allow them to come near enowjh to your shelter before 

 firing. Not one young shooter in a dozen does this ! 

 Twenty to twenty-five yards is not at all too near 

 to fire at a driven grouse ; and at twenty yards not 

 one in fifty will be spoilt for the table. The head and 

 neck of the bird usually encounter the charge ; and 

 hence these parts often protect the breast and sides 

 from damage. Besides this, the feathers of a grouse 

 flying towards you lie so close and hard that many of 

 the pellets that strike them will slant along without 

 penetrating the skin. 



A driven grouse that appears to be twenty yards 

 off is nearly always thirty. Nothing shows this 

 plainer than the attempt to kill a bird crossing in 



