354 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



retriever, as they will not be far from your shelter, 

 and not one in a score is likely to rise off the ground. 



If you eschew long shots when grouse driving, you 

 will rarely be troubled with wounded birds that are 

 able to fly. 



For the purpose of finding your dead birds, a 

 r.etriever is well suited not a ' racer,' but a steady 

 dog that will hunt close and persistently. He should 

 be well under command, as if he gallops too wide he 

 may easily scare away birds that are intended to be 

 driven over the shelters in an ensuing drive. But 

 the best dogs by far for grouse driving are a couple of 

 retrieving spaniels ; they never tire of bustling about 

 the heather, so long as you encourage them to think 

 there is a dead grouse left to pick up. They occupy 

 little space in a dogcart or in a grouse shelter, and 

 will work hard and keen every day and all day. Now 

 a retriever often seems to fancy it is beneath his 

 dignity to seek for one dead grouse after another on 

 the same small plot of ground ; and I have known 

 some of the best sulk towards the end of the day, 

 energetically though they began work in the morning 

 a serious fault which a spaniel is not capable of. 



Do not ever be satisfied you have picked up all your 

 dead grouse, if you killed a good many in the drive ; if 

 you know you dropped but six or seven, why, when you 



