96 THE GUN: AFIELD AND AFLOAT 



more or less alike. Of course the old hands, knowing to 

 a nicety the habits of their quarry, were inclined to pick 

 out the best holding patches of game-shelter according 

 to weather or the time of day. All the same, if the 

 ground was to be properly shot over, every available 

 inch was at that period beaten more or less scrupulously. 

 This old-time plan is still followed by several sportsmen, 

 particularly in those districts where other methods of 

 procedure cannot so well be practised. 



With the more general adoption of the breech-loader 

 came a change of tactics. Shooting men on finding that 

 they could discharge and reload their guns with far 

 greater ease and celerity, arrived at the conclusion that 

 so much stubble-ranging was slow work. Thereupon 

 means were devised for a general briskening up of sport, 

 with the result that pasture and stubble and ground of 

 that nature were, either partly or wholly, left to be 

 ranged by keepers and beaters, the game lodged thereon 

 being driven into better holding covert, such as turnips 

 or mangolds, rape and mustard, potatoes and big clover 

 aftermath. Thus the system known as " walking up," 

 as apart from shooting over dogs, came to be instituted ; 

 the gunners walking in line flushing their own game in 

 the root-crops and other good shelter, the only dogs 

 taken being Retrievers for the purpose of picking up the 

 dead or wounded game. 



Another and greater change in the method of shooting 

 has done still more in the direction of banishing Pointer 

 and Setter from the shooting-field than even the last- 

 mentioned plan of walking the game up. I refer to the 

 system known as driving. By this plan the game on 

 partridge-manor or grouse-moor is driven by an extended 

 line of beaters over a corresponding line of guns posted 



