256 



over which ten to fifteen brace in a day could be bagged easily by an 

 ordinary shot. 



Grouse moors in Derbyshire or Yorkshire yield &, bird an acre, while 

 those in Scotland do not give more than a bird per ten acres on an average. 

 Then, on a 2,000-acre Yorkshire moor, twenty or thirty men have to be 

 employed on a drive. On a 10,000-acre moor in Scotland only about six 

 gillies are needed. The English drivers would only be employed about 

 six times a year with the grouse, but partridge-shooting then absorbs 

 them, and after that the covert shooting. In England I have heard it 

 calculated that every 1,500 acres of moor or farm land employs one 

 gamekeeper all the year round. In Scotland 15,000 acres in some 

 places employs only one keeper with one or two assistants permi^nently. 

 I think, therefore, there can't be much difference between cost in 

 England and cost in Scotland of grouse moors alone. 



Twenty thousand acres of good grouse-shooting can at times be got 

 in Scotland for £500 ; however, 10,000 acres for £350 would be about 

 the average of good Scotch moors. 



In England 10,000 acres of good partridge ground would cost at least 

 £500. 



Pheasants are, I think, quite as numerous as grouse ; but pheasant 

 shooting is not so generally let to tenants. Home-bred pheasants cost a 

 lot of money, and those bought fully grown to be turned down for a 

 shoot cost much more. Grouse cost nothing to rear but only to shoot. 

 Pheasants cost quite as much to shoot as do grouse. 



Scotland is only about one-fourth the extent of the whole kingdom, 

 but it is nearly all shooting or fishing ground. The shooting season 

 lasts there practically for only six or eight weeks, during which the 

 sport is carried on everywhere every day. Over the remainder of the 

 kingdom, although shooting of one sort or other is followed up from 

 August 12 till the end of February, the area is not as generally covered 

 with game preserves a^ is Scotland, neither is the sport continued so 

 universally. At the same time shooting in England necessitates a vast 

 amount of travelling, and the tips to keepers and carriers are higher 

 than in Scotland. 



Shooting nowadays is vastly more expensive than it was formerly. 

 To provide for the big shoots pheasants and partridge have to be home- 

 bred and reared in enormous numbers, and to prevent poaching keepers 

 have to be employed wherever game is required. If not strictly pre- 

 served every head would be killed, as is the case in Ireland. When I 

 was a boy we had partridge, quail, hares, and snipe in plenty where not 

 one is to be found now. Snipe, however, have been driven away princi- 

 pally by the drainage of the bogs. 



A friend has lent me for a day or two the Shooting volume of the 

 Badminton Library, and from it I extract the following, which gives 

 further explanation on the subject I am dealing with : — 



" It may be said that in England at the present time (1886) fifty to 

 seventy brace of grouse to five or six guns shooting over dogs is an 

 excellent day's sport, and over a hundred brace the exception. In 



