BLACK-GAME SHOOTING 
flushing the birds. Once on the wing, the Blackcock is a singularly 
independent individual, with strong preconceived notions as to which 
way he means to go, and flankers, flags and beaters have little effect on 
his flight. The writer remembers well seeing a big pack of black-game 
in a grouse drive break out over a whole row of flankers without paying 
the slightest attention to their frantic demonstrations, presently to swing 
round and come back into the drive right over the beaters’ heads and on 
to the guns. Another time an old stager came swinging in from a flank 
at the end of a drive, passing over the outside butt, and so down the whole 
line receiving the fire of each of five guns in turn. He was certainly well 
up, and travelling apace, but there was no particular reason why every one 
should have missed him clean. At least one would have thought that the 
noise of the guns, and whistling of the shot, would have disturbed his 
equanimity sufficiently to make him avoid any repetition of the perform- 
ance; yet on reaching the end of the line, he changed his mind and 
decided that, after all, he would rather go the other way. A slight increase 
in height was the only noticeable concession to the guns beneath, as he 
came straight back down the line, presently to vanish in the direction 
whence he came, no whit the worse for such a salute as would have 
pleased an Indian rajah. 
And this is the bird that sportsmen in every other country in 
Europe will tell you it is good sport to lie up for on a spring morning, 
and plaster on the ground as he courts his greyhen — or rather hens, 
for his affections are somewhat comprehensive — with quaint antics and 
insistent, if unmusical, voice. 
While Blackcocks can thus show themselves at times quite oblivious 
of any human attempts to control their movements, the wind — so all- 
important a factor in the flight of all our other game-birds — as a rule 
exercises only a very minor influence on their course. 
It is true that they will always evince marked disinclination to fly 
straight down wind, when it is blowing at all hard, owing to the discom- 
fort of having their tails blown about. Apart from this they will fly whither 
they list, with that calm deliberation that characterizes all their pro- 
ceedings, careless from which airt the wind may blow, and facing, without 
trouble, a wind which no Grouse or Partridge could live against. 
This is often evident in the later grouse drives of the season. In some 
up -wind drive when any Grouse that rises more than a few feet off the 
ground at once swings back over the beaters, only those coming forward 
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