those mentioned above as the reach-me-down clothes shop to the high-class West End tailor. These I cannot recommend. I must not conclude this necessary digression on choice of guns without adding that he who lives in the country entirely, and cannot afford the price of the first-rate London firm, will do better to employ a provincial maker of known repute. Of these there are several in England and Scotland of whom very excellent judges have reason to speak in terms of high praise, and whose work is far better than that of the wholesale heavily puffed firms, trading under assumed London names, who falsely profess to give you the same article as the good makers at one-third of the price. A few words on this subject have not appeared to me out of place in a chapter on grouse driving, since it is precisely in this branch of sport that guns are put to the most severe tests. The atmospheric conditions, exposing the workmanship of your piece to great extremes of heat, wet and cold, with the concomitant condition of very heavy firing, rapid working of the mechanism, and maximum of expansion or contraction of the metal, try the workmanship of a gun severely. A weapon which 'jams' in the middle of a good grouse drive would spoil the temper of an archangel. In the arrangement and conduct of your drives I must repeat, with even greater emphasis, what I have said in the volume on the 'Partridge' concerning wind; but you are far more in the hands of your head man and his drivers on this point than in any partridge drive. The latter have often to foot it some miles, even before you are out of your bed, to get to the remote point whence they will start the first drive. This involves organisation, since, living possibly some distance apart, they will not all start from the same place, and probably consist of two parties, each of which must be under a responsible lieutenant who thoroughly knows the ground. Consequently, should it be advisable to change the beat for the day on account of wind, or even the method of beating the ground, you must be able to rely absolutely upon the judgment and decision of your head man. It is almost indispensable that he should be a moorland man, born and bred, though I admit that I have. come across one or two notable exceptions to this. If he doesn't know the moors, literally up hill and down dale, every turn of the wind, every habit of the grouse, and every dodge of the driver, he is of no use to you in Yorkshire. He will command neither the confidence nor the obedience of his drivers, who, being all dalesmen who have travelled the moors and fells all their lives, know a good deal on their own account, and have it largely in their power to frustrate the most elaborate manœuvres. If you have to select a new chief, it is far better to promote the most trustworthy of the men who have been driving on the moor for years, rather than to put a man over their heads who has been mostly used to low-ground shooting, merely because he is considered 'fit for a head keeper's place.' Very difficult manœuvres have sometimes to be executed, and unless your moor is very large in extent it is only by the most delicate and experienced handling, in which every man must honestly co-operate, that the birds can be kept upon your ground. Five thousand acres is not nearly enough to hold large packs in a high wind, unless they are very well managed. Suppose, for instance, that a large number of birds are packed at the head of a valley and on the ridge, close to the march, and there is a strong wind blowing towards the march. Unless your men get round very gingerly, keeping out of sight as carefully as a stalker getting up to deer, on the down-wind side, the game is up, and possibly your whole day's sport spoilt. I have seen this very manœuvre beautifully carried out, and even the birds, having somehow taken the alarm, rise and make a big circuit round near the march. |