SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



hundred acres of this shoot consists of heather 

 land, or, as it is termed in Lancashire, a moss. 

 Through the middle of this moss runs a railway, 

 and although it is not fifty feet above sea level 

 yet grouse are found on it. The grouse are fine 

 healthy birds, and sickness has not yet been 

 known here ; the best bag for one day is fifteen 

 brace. The heather is never systematically burnt, 

 and the occasional fires are caused by the sparks 

 of a passing engine. The remainder of the 

 land is devoted to potatoes and clover, the 

 fields running between fifteen and twenty 

 acres, with only the merest apology for hedges 

 dividing them. The Ground Game Act has 

 not affected the head of game killed. Partridges 

 are particularly fond of this land, and the record 

 bag of 103 brace to four guns speaks very well 

 for it ; as the hedges are so small, driving is out 

 of the question, and all the birds obtained are 

 got by walking them up. The only covert is 

 on the moss, and about two hundred birds are 

 put down annually, yet the average bag of 

 pheasants for the season works out at 350, and 

 not many shoots can show such a return for so 

 small an outlay. Besides the birds already 

 mentioned, snipe, woodcock, wild duck and 

 green plover are shot here ; occasionally golden 

 plover are obtained, but they are very scarce. 

 Rabbits swarm, and the average number of hares 

 killed in the season is about four hundred. The 

 great charm of this little shoot lies in the varied 

 bag obtained. On one day in 1905, partridges, 

 pheasants, green plover, snipe, woodcock, hares 

 and rabbits, with one golden plover, were killed. 



At Newton-le-Willows, another small shoot 

 in the south of the county, no pheasants are put 

 down, yet in several years the present writer has 

 been at the death of over one hundred and fifty 

 pheasants in the day, all of them really good 

 birds. Hares are very numerous, and run to a 

 very large size ; one has only to go near Altcar, 

 and see the beating up of the hares for the 

 Waterloo Cup, to get an idea of their remark- 

 able numbers. 



The first shoot of importance in the south is 

 that of Hale^ near Liverpool. It consists of 5,000 

 acres, and belongs to Colonel Ireland Blackburne, 

 C.B. The crops are nearly all potatoes, and the 

 hedges are very fairly respectable in size. A few 

 days early in the season are devoted to walking up 

 the partridges, but from October onward driving 

 is the order of the day ; some of these drives 

 are rather long ones, in order to get as many 

 hares in as possible. Huge flocks of golden 



' It was at Hale that the writer saw an answer 

 to the vexed question whether driven partridges or 

 pheasants are the faster. It was about the middle 

 of October, and a drive for the little brown birds was 

 taking place. A covey was seen coming from some 

 distance, and after they had been travelling some time a 

 cock pheasant got up behind them ; he, however, came 

 over the guns first. 



483 



plovers are often seen, but not many pay toll, 

 for like their common relative they are too 

 wary to come within shot. The average bag of 

 pheasants for the last twenty years works out at 

 about two thousand, cocks and hens being very 

 fairly divided. 



The largest covert on this estate, that of Mill 

 Wood, takes more than half the day to shoot; 

 the birds as a rule come fast and high, but there 

 is one famous beat which is generally the 

 third in the wood ; the guns and beaters first 

 walk in line, and on coming to a drive cut 

 through the wood the guns stop, and the beaters, 

 who have already drawn out on coming to a 

 stream some fifty yards in rear of the drive, are 

 sent to the end of the covert, and the birds are 

 driven back over the guns. Here one gets 

 pheasants coming as fast and as thick as heart 

 could want ; but the shooting is by no means 

 easy, for the trees are high and very numerous, 

 and the openings between them but small. 

 Another good covert is the Old Plantation, but 

 it is difficult to show the birds well, owing to the 

 excessive undergrowth. 



As a rule the hares killed in the season come 

 to about seven hundred odd, though in 1906-7 

 over eight hundred were obtained. The total 

 bag for the season ranges between six and seven 

 thousand. The Ground Game Act has prac- 

 tically made no difference to the bag. 



Another good shoot is that at Speke, which 

 adjoins Hale. The hares here are even more 

 numerous than they are on Colonel Black- 

 burne's estate, but in a way it is not such 

 a good sporting property as Hale, owing per- 

 haps to its being too neatly farmed. Birds 

 do not love too well-brushed hedges. Another 

 typical small shoot in the county is that of 

 Winmarleigh, about six miles from Preston. 

 Here no big bags are made, but the average 

 works out at about three thousand head for the 

 season. Excellent sport, however, is had with 

 the rabbits, and in the season 1889-90 2,772 

 were killed. Hares are not nearly so numerous 

 in this part of the county as in the south-west, 

 and the yearly total only averages about two 

 hundred and twenty. There is a mention in the 

 game records of one wild goose killed here in 

 1891. 



Lytham, the property of Mr. John Talbot 

 Clifton, was at one time one of the best 

 sporting estates in the county, but the head of 

 game obtained has diminished of late years. 

 The total area of the estate is some 16,000 

 acres, but various outlying beats have for many 

 years been left off, and there is no authentic 

 record of the game killed on these beats. The 

 home shootings are 10,270 acres in extent, of 

 which about 400 acres are covert ; this shoot 

 has been let since 1894. The wild pheasants 

 are few, and the number killed depends almost 

 entirely on hand-reared birds. During the 



