SCOTCH DRIVING 129 



watchers will tell you that every bird came as though 

 out of the sky straight for a particular rock, or peak 

 of high ground, and swinging round the point into the 

 lee, alighted in the shelter. 



There you have the spot for your butts. Neither 

 grouse nor, so far as I have ever seen, any other bird 

 can pause and alight in his flight down wind without 

 turning round and up into the wind to do it. They 

 will seldom attempt this, and almost invariably drop 

 into a sheltered spot where they can settle without 

 fear of being dashed against the ground by the force 

 of the wind. 



So much for your down-wind drives, which are, in 

 spite of anything you may be told to the contrary, 

 much the most difficult to manage on steep or high 

 and precipitous ground. 



You will find it easy enough to push them back 

 up wind, provided you attend to one or two essential 

 points. The butts in this case must, as I remarked 

 above, never be placed- along a ridge or sky-line, but 

 just behind it, so as to give the guns about fifty to 

 eighty yards in front of them to see the birds coming. 

 I have never seen a successful drive where it was 

 attempted to push birds up wind to butts on a ridge, 

 though it can be done with the wind. Again, though 

 it is a very pretty sight to observe the birds, at first 



K 



