154 SHOOTING THE GROUSE 



lower ground, before they form line for the individual 

 drives. Two men at least more if available should 

 then be told off who would keep on the high ground 

 all day, always walking across it, keeping the birds 

 from finding refuge there, and constantly pushing 

 them on to the lower faces. This would be a very 

 effective method, and I have never taken part in driv- 

 ing on a Scotch moor, whether in Aberdeenshire in 

 the palmy days of 1872, or on a west-coast shooting 

 in more recent and inferior seasons, without feeling 

 that the ground, without some such manoeuvre as this, 

 was not being properly covered, and that the birds 

 had a shade the best of the contest. 



Late in the season the birds all over the ground 

 will pack, and unless you can get at these packs and 

 break them up your sport is poor ; they will after 

 they have been driven a few times betake themselves 

 bodily to the tops, leaving you with nothing but a 

 few stragglers all young birds to make your bag 

 from. 



Not having a moor of my own, and feeling, there- 

 fore, that in spite of varied experience on other 

 people's ground I am still liable to the criticism of those 

 who own moors, and who might think that my remarks 

 are not practical or applicable to their particular cases, 

 I have been at the pains to obtain an exhaustive 



