GROUSE-DRIVING 209 



to sleep, letting the grouse stream over his 

 head uninjured ; and extenuating circumstances 

 may at least be pleaded in mitigation of his 

 sentence. I have started out grouse-driving on 

 worse days than I have ever faced any other 

 form of shooting. It is difficult to say No 

 when a drive has been planned long before- 

 hand and guns and beaters collected from a 

 distance, especially when the end of the season 

 is approaching and it must be now or never. 

 The best way is to be prepared to face all con- 

 tingencies, and remember that often a very bad 

 morning ripens out into a bright day, while 

 determined bad weather may follow on the most 

 glorious sunrise. It is not like covert-shooting, 

 where a really wet morning is fatal to sport, 

 as the undergrowth will be dripping and the 

 birds draggled, even if the weather clears soon 

 after the start ; for grouse soon recover the 

 effects of the heaviest showers, and rise more 

 easily and fly farther after some hours of storm. 

 The views too after the air has cleared are often 

 magnificent, and as I write I can recall glorious 

 views of Ailsa Craig and Arran from the rolling 

 hills of Ayrshire, or the mist clearing from the 

 high hills around Millden or Invermark. 



An improvised drive, when birds have turned 

 out too wild to walk, or a lot of old black- 

 cocks or grouse have been spied on a hillside 

 stubble or a green brae on the edge of a moor, 



o 



