222 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



introduced, but so they were also in Yorkshire. In the 

 Highlands the grouse were not so wild but that the shooter 

 could select the old cock of a brood and kill him over the dogs. 

 In Yorkshire this could not be done ; it was difficult to get near 

 the youngest broods, to say nothing of the old cocks, and it had 

 been difficult for half a century, as is pointed out in the chapter 

 headed " Grouse that lie and Grouse that fly." Then, when these 

 old cocks became widowers and joined others similarly afflicted, 

 nothing could sufficiently reduce their numbers, and it was not 

 reduction but extermination that was wanted. Driving in 

 Yorkshire accomplished this, for there are no rocky "tops" 

 there which defy the drivers. In Scotland, on the other hand, 

 the wilder the old cocks grow the more certainly they get 

 upon these " tops," and the safer they become from the gun. 



When driving is put off until the 1st of September or there- 

 abouts, as it mostly is in Scotland, the driving is not an automatic 

 selection of a large proportion of the old birds ; on the contrary, 

 they soon get up on the " tops " when disturbance often occurs 

 below, and they leave the hens and the broods to " face the 

 music " in the strath. Thus, on the rolling moors of York- 

 shire the wilder the old cocks become the more certainly they 

 get driven to the guns, whereas in Scotland the more certainly 

 they find security on the tops that never yet have been success- 

 fully driven. Before peregrines were mostly destroyed, the old 

 cocks dare not venture on those covertless tops. From these 

 facts it can be gathered that it is not the driving that makes all 

 the difference, but merely the killing of barren and old birds, and 

 that it does not matter how this is accomplished so that it is 

 done thoroughly. The assumption is that it was done 

 thoroughly in Scotland before driving began, and that it was 

 impossible to do it in England, where the birds were a 

 fortnight earlier and out of all comparison wilder. At any rate, 

 we cannot deny that before grouse butts were seen on one 

 moor in fifty in Scotland, the grouse stock had arrived at its 

 highest point; that between 10,000 and n,ooo grouse had 

 fallen before dogs at Glenbuchat in the season of 1 872 ; that over 

 7000 had been killed in a month at Delnadamph, in Aberdeen- 



