WALKING UP 153 



' Yes,' you feel inclined to say, ' but the " awful lot " 

 are no longer there ; one hundred and sixty of them 

 have been picked, trussed, and eaten, a few more 

 died and were never retrieved, and what are left, 

 though they would make a pretty wild sporting 

 second-time-over shoot, will give us a very poor day's 

 driving. If they were still here alive, together with 

 the fifty brace which six of us will with difficulty 

 secure to-day, we should have a pretty day.' To 

 this his answer will probably be that he prefers 

 smaller bags and more days. Well and good, but he 

 has no business with the second day at all. It is too 

 much for the ground, and if two days were to be 

 made on the beat, this is not the way to make 

 them, especially as he probably shot his eighty brace 

 with inferior guns, and asked his best guns to the 

 later driving. In these days the demand is not so 

 much for a great number of days' shooting as for good 

 and well-managed days, quality as to the number of 

 days, quality and quantity combined, where possible, 

 as regards the shooting. 



There are now many more resources and localities 

 open to every one. Life is busier, and most men have 

 too much to do to shoot six or even four days a week 

 right through the season. I am far from saying that 

 a man has not a perfect right, or is not often justified, 



