SCO TCH DRIVING 1 5 1 



breeding season could be increased. I must beg to 

 differ from him. He does not, as a rule, even know 

 how many he has on the ground ; and the aforesaid 

 packs of very old birds on the higher ground are to 

 him a mysterious, unknown, and inaccessible quantity, 

 He may walk all over the tops, with dogs or without, 

 but unless he creeps and crouches like a stalker, and 

 studies the instinct of the birds which causes them 

 always to lie in the leeward or sheltered sides of the 

 hills or knowes, peeping, with half his face and the 

 whole of his body hidden, over the brows, and ad- 

 vancing with noiseless tread, he will not even catch 

 sight of these wary old fowl. Nothing will fairly show 

 you what stock of grouse you have upon a moor except 

 driving it ; and unless you drive the whole of it, 

 especially late in the season, you can never be sure 

 what is the quantity of birds left behind or outside 

 your drives which you may not have seen. If you 

 are petermined, whatever your conditions, to kill the 

 majority of your birds over dogs, you still ought to 

 drive the tops, and do what you can to reduce the 

 regiments of antique fowls which inhabit them You 

 are not asked to eat them ; they will do to send to 

 your friends (?), or to swell the market which supplies 

 the suburban taste for game through the medium of 

 third-rate restaurants ; but kill them if you can. 



