MORE DRIVING 215 



nature to your trained eye to mark, learn, 

 and hand over to your brain to inwardly 

 digest the salient features of each butt you 

 are sent to occupy. 



But your labours are not yet over when 

 these preliminaries are finished. From 

 now to the end of the drive you must 

 incessantly scan your horizon from right 

 to left and back again, remembering that 

 to see birds coming to you in good time is 

 half the battle, and that by far the greater 

 proportion of misses one sees in a day's 

 grouse -driving under normal conditions 

 are due, not to bad shooting, but to being 

 taken unawares. The sudden jerk you 

 give when a bird has got within a few 

 yards of you unseen betrays your presence, 

 and evokes a corresponding "jink' 1 to one 

 side on the part of the bird, and what was 

 going to have been a " moral certainty " 

 had you been ready, becomes a difficult 

 shot to any one, and an exceedingly 

 probable miss to one in your flustered 

 condition. 



Let, Ready, aye Ready, then be your 



