HINTS ON GROUSE DRIVING. 127 



another to sit behind, watching the back of the butt 

 without intermission, to mark what birds may fall in 

 the rear. All this have we ; and, being so, let us 

 make the best of it, and try to believe that it is all 

 for the best this new-fangled notion of sport being, 

 without doubt, most conducive to the increase of the 

 ;stock of birds upon any moor where it can be carried 

 out in its integrity, until the time that retribution 

 sets in, the ground gets overloaded, disease appears, 

 sweeps the moor, and the whole process has to com- 

 mence again de novo. Happy the man whose lease 

 commences at the zenith, and who is able to quit, 

 ere disastrous retribution overtakes his enormous 

 artificial stock of red grouse. 



The mere fact that the killing of any single grouse 

 that is, a bird which flies alone without com- 

 panions is a certain benefit to any shooting, is 

 quite sufficient in itself to account for the rapid 

 increase of stock upon a driven moor ; the gener- 

 ality of these single specimens turning out to be 

 " old cocks," ancient bachelors of pugnacious habit, 

 who take very good care during that important epoch 

 of the year, the breeding season, to select and care- 

 fully guard for their own especial use and behoof an 

 unreasonably large acreage of heather, which, but 

 for these drones, would be invaded and utilised by 

 the really useful, i.e., breeding, denizens of the 

 mountains. If they be not old cocks (old bachelors, 

 as said before), these single tempting shots that 



