SCOTCH DRIVING 149 



cocks arc the worst, and both must by some means 

 or other be destroyed. You would never dream of 

 keeping birds of this age in a poultry yard for 

 profit, where the inevitable test of /. s. d. forces you 

 to be practical. Why should you allow this loss of 

 stock on your grouse moor? We must therefore 

 condemn them ; but how is the sentence of death to 

 be carried out ? It is not easy. The nature of the 

 ground they frequent in the shooting season, and 

 their alert and wily habits, sentinelled as they are 

 during their baskings and feedings, tortuous and swift 

 as is their flight, are ample protection against the 

 ordinary methods of the average shooter, keeper, and 

 brace of dogs. I would rather poison them than 

 have them on my own ground, and on expressing this 

 revolutionary idea to a friend of mine, one of the best 

 known living authorities on such subjects, I was 

 delighted to hear him cordially assent. 



But as I have not studied the Korgian method, 

 and am not therefore in a position to actually recom- 

 mend it, I will confine myself to other and more 

 practicable means. These birds could be immensely 

 reduced in numbers, if not decimated, by indefatig- 

 able stalking ; but this would consume an immense 

 amount of time, involve constant disturbance of the 

 other birds on the ground, and entirely engross the 



