128 HINTS ON GROUSE DRIVING. 



help so much to fill the bag why, a truism they 

 must be hens ; and every keeper knows that a single 

 old hen (an old maid, in fact) is about as valuable 

 a member of the grouse community as Aunt Tabitha 

 or old Cousin Martha is amongst ourselves orna- 

 mental and useful to the workaday world. These 

 old grouse come one by one straight and steady up 

 to the guns. They generally fly low, right along 

 the ground. As with French partridges, there is no 

 swerving ; no whirr and buzz of hundreds of wings 

 to distract the shooter's attention. A quiet aim is 

 taken ; even the tyro seldom misses these hoary 

 hermits. Over he topples close to the butt, and 

 the moor for the next season is benefited to a 

 certainty, whereas when a wall of birds all of a 

 sudden confronts the astounded beginner, the betting 

 is about two to one on the bird, " browning " 

 thrown in. 



Another very marked alteration, which the pre- 

 vailing fondness for shooting at the breast of a bird 

 instead of his back, and forcing him to seek your 

 society, instead of tramping yourself, wearily and 

 for miles, in order to pay him a personal call at his 

 own domicile, has caused during the last few years 

 (and no one knows this fact better, and to his 

 cost too, than the present writer), is the change in 

 the relative demand and prices paid for the faithful 

 shooting assistants of the last generation, our 

 pointers and setters. But for Field Trials these 



