PARTRIDGE DRIVING 179 



any other way. A young grouse sitting well is pro- 

 bably the easiest of all birds to shoot early in 

 the season, but not when it has grown wilder ; 

 and an old bird who sits watching on the top of a 

 hillock, and disappears down a gully almost the 

 moment the sportsman spies him, is very hard 

 to kill. At the notable moors of the far 

 North I have mentioned, no walking is done, and 

 even by the 20th of August grouse at, we will say, 

 Lochendorb, where a lot of the ground is flat and 

 birds can be seen for a long way, are easily missed ; 

 whilst if they come full speed off some of the ^'tops" 

 with the wind behind them, the man who cannot 

 get off his gun quickly will find himself with a very 

 limited number of birds to pick up when the drive 

 is over. 



Talking of the drive being over reminds me 

 that nothing is more reprehensible or dangerous 

 than for a man to move out of his butt until 

 the beaters have got quite past, as there may easily 

 be some birds sitting tight close to the butts ; 

 and by moving you spoil the sport of other 

 people, even if happily it leads to no wretched 

 accident. One of the things about grouse-driving 

 which some people find boring, especially in Scot- 

 land, where it is in many parts extremely difficult 

 to get a sufficient number of beaters, is the long 

 wait between the drives ; but then if the day is 

 only fine, and the sportsman wise enough to be 

 pleased by the charms of scenery which he will 

 find to perfection in the majority of moors at any 



