106 GROUSE AND BLACK -GAME SHOOTING. 



the packs are strong, and especially before they have been 

 much shot at, their flights are usually not nearly so long 

 as they are afterwards ; but even then, should the day be 

 windy, they are generally rapid and uncertain. When 

 this is unfortunately the case, they are so capricious in the 

 choice of their refuge as often to baffle the most determined 

 tramper of the moors. 



Grouse are much more difficult to find in the middle of 

 the day than in the morning and evening, when they move 

 more about ; but in sultry weather they lie quite still, 

 except at feeding-time ; and not having stirred perhaps for 

 hours, the dogs may come within a yard or two before 

 winding them. To procure shots at such times tries the 

 mettle both of the sportsman and his dogs. During con- 

 tinued rain, they are apt to gather beneath the shade of a 

 hillock, or in scaurs and ravines. To continue ranging is 

 mere waste of time, until it clears, and the ground has 

 dried a little ; for, to say nothing of the other miseries, the 

 birds, even when found, will not run a yard in the wet 

 heather, and generally take wing at a long distance. 

 When the weather is boisterous, they are very fidgety and 

 wild, even at the beginning of the season. It is then easy 

 to see who does and who does not understand anything of 

 grouse-shooting. Every inequality of ground must be taken 

 advantage of. The sportsman should crouch as much as he 

 can, wearing a drab-coloured cap, which will often take him 

 five or six yards nearer his game than the lowest-crowned 

 hat he can procure. If possible, he should always advance 

 from lower ground, walking up any cracks or hollows in 



