HINTS ON GROUSE DRIVING. 147 



discriminate sportsmen wandering about the moor 

 picking up with their retriever, it is the rule of many 

 places that no shot is to be fired except from a 

 battery salutary regulation, but an aggravating one 

 at times, when your dog puts up a bird which can 

 just flutter along the top of the heather, and which, 

 getting stronger as it goes vires acquirens eundo 

 finally disappears over the sky line, to die before 

 night without doubt, when, as you bitterly think, had 

 it' not been for that absurd rule that no loaded gun 

 is to be taken out of the battery, you could have so 

 easily cut short his wobbling departure. No one 

 would have been the worse, and humanity the gainer ; 

 but let him go. The laws of the Medes and Persians 

 could not have been sterner than is that of the grouse 

 moor; and another very excellent reason why indis- 

 criminate loosing off should -be sternly discouraged 

 is, that as in most places it is the custom to start 

 each new drive by the firing of a double shot, both 

 barrels one after the other as quick as may be some- 

 one who uses black powder being selected as signal 

 man any shot at a wrong moment audible to the 

 drivers might, and probably would, bring them on too 

 soon, and so ruin everything. 



There is no form of shooting that to my mind 

 affords better practice to the beginner than grouse 

 driving, and in no other school of instruction in 

 musketry do you get so many chances to observe 

 your own defects. You will not be long at the game 



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