GROUSE SHOOTING. 427 



grouse-shooter need not be so punctilious. The 

 following practicable method of obtaining such a 

 shot as will, in all probability, secure a plurality 

 of birds at each discharge, is from one of the 

 papers of " A Quartogenarian" in the Sporting 

 Magazine. As regards grouse-shooting, we think 

 the justification of the practice is fully made out, 

 when it is remembered that the writer is speak- 

 ing of a wet and windy day in November of 

 that season when grouse leave the high hill-tops 

 altogether, and resort to the braes, and broken 

 bases of the hills, whence, on the approach of the 

 shooter, they take .flight long before he is within 

 range, and wing round the turns of the knolls or 

 rocks. He says, " In such cases the best way will 

 be to station yourself previously down wind, where 

 your dear-earned experience has led you to expect 

 them, and send a person, or persons, to take a 

 good circuit, and walk carefully through the lea 

 sides and sheltered beilds of the hills. The best 

 family shots are often to be thus obtained, and 

 under such circumstances are perfectly justifiable, 

 though in common shooting there is nothing I 

 more detest doing or seeing done, than to drop 

 more than one bird to a barrel, to avoid which the 

 outer birds should always be fired at. But here the 

 case is quite different ; always take the middle 

 birds, ' Father, mother, and Suke, down with 

 them, the more the merrier, 1 and this is what I 

 term a, family shot !*" 



The red grouse does not attain his full size and 

 plumage until he has moulted twice. There is an 



