GROUSE AND BLACK-GAME SHOOTING. 



fowls. Your best plan then is to hide yourself among 

 the sheaves, and wait for their feeding-hours. If you are 

 well-concealed, and select the proper part of the field, 

 you may have an opportunity of killing a brace sitting, 

 with your first barrel, and another bird with your second. 

 As the fields become bare, and the days shorten, they 

 begin to feed three times; namely, at daybreak, at 

 noon, and an hour before dusk. To get a shot then is 

 much more difficult. I have made a hole in the stone 

 walls which enclose most of the Highland fields, in 

 order to shoot through it. I have also placed a bush on 

 the top to screen myself when rising to fire ; but they 

 have such quick sight and acute hearing, both well exer- 

 cised when feeding on this dangerous ground, that I 

 have found it a better plan not to attempt the sitting 

 shot. My way is to crawl as near the place where they 

 are feeding as possible, and make my attendant and one 

 of the farm-servants enter at each end of the field oppo- 

 site, and come leisurely down towards the birds ; they 

 are then almost sure to fly over your head, and give you 

 an excellent double shot. Care must be taken, however, 

 to ascertain that no sentinel is perched upon the wall, 

 or any high ground near, as there often is at the begin- 

 ning of the feed. Should there be, wait patiently till 

 he joins the flock. I have also, by this method, often 

 got a capital chance at grouse feeding on the stubble, 

 which they sometimes do in the lowlands, when return- 

 ing from my shooting-ground in Selkirkshire. 



