THE MOOR 179 



that the keeper will be able to gauge fairly accurately 

 the general direction taken by the birds in their flight. 

 On this important information depends the question as 

 to where the butts should be placed. Where driving 

 is practised on a moor, the initial drives can only be 

 regarded as experimental, and even when fairly accurate 

 knowledge has been obtained, further experience may 

 require the alteration of the position of the butts. The 

 fact cannot be unduly emphasised, that no hesitation 

 must be shown in making new lines of butts, or in shift- 

 ing old ones. On many moors the butts of primitive 

 days are treated like eternal monuments, not to be in- 

 terfered with by any law or experience on earth. Truly 

 these old stagers may be monuments of ignorance 

 but quite useless for sport. 



(3) The principles underlying the formation, pro- 

 gression, and evolution of the beaters. The art of 

 driving is not easily learned, and the details are only 

 perfected by experience. There are keepers who, 

 despite the fact that birds are continually breaking back 

 over the drivers or escaping at the flanks, persist with 

 their primitive fashion of a more or less uncontrolled 

 line of drivers, who are possessed with only three ideas, 

 firstly, to make their way by a bee line to the butts ; 

 secondly, to keep in line with their neighbours ; and, 

 thirdly, to yell " Mark " whenever birds arise. Let it 

 be reiterated for the hundredth time that the formation 

 of the drivers should never be a straight line, but should 

 be horseshoe-shaped, and that the length and the dis- 



