ROUGH SHOOTING. 557 



whortleberry, where black game delight to feed at morn and 

 eventide, but it is useless to look for them there now. Partridges 

 sometimes sun themselves on the next slope. We try for them 

 in vain, and make up our minds that they will be found later 

 among the turnips or long stubble on "steep uplands along the 

 coombe, where no reaping machines have ever been seen at work 

 yet. In the hollow yonder between two waves of brown heather 

 is tawny moorland grass that looks withered and dry. Let us 

 work that steadily with guns wide apart like skirmishers, and 

 always keeping a keen look-out forward. Moorland hares are 

 wild and fleet of foot. One is certain to start out from a tussock 

 presently, and if you are not ready to shoot when the chance 

 comes, there is little hope of bagging her. The next moment she 

 will have disappeared in one of the furrows she knows so well, 

 speeding away with ears laid back and legs outstretched, so that 

 a little ridge serves to hide her from view until she crosses the 

 crest sixty yards off. But better luck is likely to be in store for 

 you if the dogs are not too eager. In that grass-grown hollow 

 which has now the colour of an African veldt in hot summer-time, 

 I once saw three hares on foot at the same moment, and each fell 

 before the gun of a different sportsman. A minute later we 

 started an old dog fox from the lair in which he had been curled 

 up, sleeping peacefully after his midnight feast, or perhaps 

 waiting patiently until the rabbits should come out to feed on the 

 short sweet grass and wild thyme leaves that grow about the 

 rocky mounds of a neighbouring burrow. There is our favourite 

 ferreting ground, and we may be sure of a full bag on days set 

 apart for that sport. Towards evening we may knock over a few 

 of them, as with white skuts showing clearly in the fading light, 



L 1 



