THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
who cheat the wind by hugging closely the face of the hill, seeking the 
lee of every inequality in the ground. But in the same drive you may 
often see black-game thirty feet and more up in the air, coming 
straight on, right in the teeth of the wind, with leisurely, powerful flight. 
Only a very stiff breeze makes them drop down to join the lower -flying 
grouse. 
This leisurely appearance of their flight, a few beats of the strong 
pinions, alternating with that easy sailing through the air which makes 
the pace so deceptive, is the cause of perhaps half the missed Blackcock — 
and no bird is more often or more consistently missed by the average 
gun ; of the other half a goodly proportion must be set down to the account 
of nerves. A Blackcock never looks hurried, and not till you have seen 
Grouse, Partridges, and black-game rise together in front of the beaters — 
no uncommon sight when some turnip field bordering on the moorland 
is being brought to the guns — ^will you ever really appreciate the driving 
power that lies in the easy motions of those strong wings. For if they 
have any distance to travel before they reach the guns, the black -game 
will easily outpace the rest ; the Grouse — apparently flying much faster — 
arriving quite appreciably later, with the Partridges, which look as though 
they were going double the pace of either, last of all. Indeed, with a short 
three hundred yards between his butt and the crest of the hill whence all 
the game rose as the first beater’s flag came in view, the writer has had 
fair chance of a right and left at all three in turn, using only one gun, and 
loading between each effort; a fine test of markmanship, whereof the 
result was unhappily not worthy of record. 
For the rest, only those happy mortals who never know what nerves 
mean can hope to escape those otherwise unaccountable moments of 
hopeless failure ; to most of us the Blackcock only comes as an occasional 
joy; and over-anxiety to make the most of a rare chance often defeats 
its own purpose. It is easier to keep cool and use one’s judgment when 
the birds are sufficiently remote, as is the case in most woodland drives 
when they can be treated much like Pheasants. But in a moorland drive 
the big pack often comes bearing down on a butt at the level of a man’s 
head, and then the occupant must have his nerves well under control, 
if he is to do himself justice, and shoot as well as he would under normal 
conditions. For there is something peculiarly disconcerting in the heavy 
black forms, sailing along with set wings and looming larger every second ; 
once yield to this influence, and a feeling of utter impotence creeps over 
38 
