Whether we ask the driver of game or the dog man does not matter, all
are agreed that the red grouse is the most sporting bird we have. It is
only necessary to see how artfully grouse butts are placed, in order to
make the shooting as easy as possible, to know that the grouse’s flight
is a match for the shooter. Successful drivings, or big bags in the day,
which is the same thing, require every assistance to be given to the
gunner, for in grouse shooting height is an assistance to him, although
it is the reverse in pheasant shooting. The reason is that the grouse
usually flies too low for a clear sight of it against the sky, and also
low enough to make shooting dangerous when the birds cross the line of
the butts. The time has not yet come with grouse, as it has with
pheasants to a great extent, when beats are planned to make the shooting
as difficult as possible. This is not wholly true of pheasants either,
because no one for the sake of increased difficulty places shooters
amongst trees, and especially fir trees, and nobody for the added
difficulty shoots his pheasants when the leaf is still on. In the same
way, a grouse driver does not put his butts where grouse cannot be seen
approaching, but selects a position 40 or more yards behind a slight
rise in the ground, in order that the guns may see the game before it is
within range, but not so much before that the sight of the gunners in
the butts will turn the grouse. So, then, to make big bags, every
advantage has to be taken to drive the grouse as easily for the guns as
can be done, and besides this the “crack” gunners excel in being best
able to select the easiest, or perhaps it would be better to say the
possible birds. They neither lose time in trying to get on to birds when
there is not time to succeed, or in shooting at others so far off as to
be at wounding distances.
The red grouse also puts the shooter over dogs to the test. Even at the
beginning of the season the direct walk up with the dog will generally
result in the old cock getting off unshot at. But with two gunners who
walk wide of the dog, the chances are that one of them will get a fair
shot at the old cock, which invariably runs away, and leaves his wife
and children to learn wisdom by experience and his example. Later on it
may be necessary to hunt the dogs down wind, and this proceeding nearly
always results in making birds lie much better than they otherwise
would; for the grouse are found by the dog when the latter is to
leeward, and the guns by walking down wind to the point complete the
surrounding movement. It may be said that unless grouse have their heads
up (when they are only fit for driving) they always are approachable by
guns, provided the latter set about it the right way, and have dogs good
enough to hunt down wind well and without flushing the game. The
qualities required in the dog cover a very wide range—a very long and
certain nose, and an absence of drawing up to game to make sure of it;
that is, an absence of hesitation in pointing. Then the degree of
accuracy of shooting that is enough in driving with cylinder guns at 25
to 30 yards range is not more than half enough with a full choke bore at
50 yards range.
There is ample scope for improvement always in grouse shooting, and the
author has never heard of the gunner who is always satisfied with his
efforts, either when shooting driven game or when shooting grouse over
dogs. Those who talk of the “battue” and “slaughter” in the same breath
have never tried, and those drivers of game who talk of shooting over
dogs as too easy for their skill find out their own weak spots when they
try it.
The proper driving of grouse to the guns is the result of local
education based on sound broad principles. The former it is obviously
not possible to deal with, and the latter have already been admirably
stated elsewhere, except for this: it has been assumed that grouse can
be driven everywhere, but this is very far from correct. They certainly
cannot be driven where they will lie well to dogs all the season.
Moreover, they cannot be satisfactorily driven when they resort to the
“tops” of the ranges of hills or mountains in the Highlands, where a
short flight puts them 500 feet over the “flankers’” heads. These
flag-men then have no more effect on the direction of the flight of the
grouse than the other “insects” in the heather have, for the drivers
resemble insects when crawling along so far below.
To state the principle of grouse driving shortly is possibly difficult.
It is based upon a series of incidents in the perceptions of the birds,
which are influenced by sight alone, and not by hearing or smelling.
They should first see a driver far off in the direction it is most
wished they should avoid flying to. If they take wing at this first
sight, then the act of rising should bring them into sight of a line of
men covering every point that they are not desired to make for. Local
conditions may alter all this, as it may be that grouse have a constant
flight, and take it however they are flushed, but generally they have
not. The means stated generally resolves itself into a quarter-circle of
beaters on the most down-wind side of a cross-wind beat, attached to a
straight line of beaters in the centre and upon the most up-wind side of
the beat, so that the men farthest down wind are the most advanced. On
the other hand, when the drive is direct to the guns with a full wind,
the line of beaters will have two horns each well advanced on either
side, unless local conditions make one side dangerous and the other not
so. Generally they do. The desired flight may or may not be at first in
the direction of the line of shooters. The first object may be
concentration, either in the air or on the ground. In the first case,
the grouse having been got to go towards a concentration point in their
flight, are gradually turned to the guns by men who are set at danger
points, and either show themselves to or are seen by the grouse at that
exact proximity that the sight of the unexpected will have most effect
in turning them. It is a curious fact that when flag-men are seen at a
long distance ahead of them, the grouse may or may not swerve in their
flight, but seen suddenly when so near as to leave just more than enough
time for turning before the impetus has carried them over the head of
the man with the flag, they turn off instead of merely swerving.
Consequently, the men who are set to turn grouse are a law to
themselves. They show themselves at the psychological moment, according
to the speed of the grouse. Only a very little is required to turn a
slow up-wind pack of grouse, whereas very much will sometimes not turn
fast down-wind birds. This turning the birds from the point towards
which they are driven is often necessary. Thus grouse may not be willing
to drive in another direction, or to drive otherwise might be to lose
the birds for the day, and to have the butts where the turn in the
flight occurs might be to allow the majority to go straight on into some
other moor, not to be seen again that day, if ever.
When birds are, or can be, collected or concentrated upon the ground, it
is much more simple. It is difficult then to make everything go right,
but it does not require quite the Napoleon of tactics that the other
method does. Obviously the concentration of grouse upon the ground
implies a larger beat than in the other case—one in which the natural
flight of the grouse will induce them to settle before they get within
sight of the butts. This concentration and settlement of the birds
enables a new formation of drivers to be made, for the collection of the
birds may have caused driving right away from the butts in the first
instance, and in most cases not directly towards them. The object of all
driving is not only to put as many grouse as possible within range of
the guns, but the more important part is that of keeping on the moor all
those grouse that go by the butts, to be used again and again the same
day.
Another way of driving grouse is based upon the same principle, except
that the driving is simple, because the beats are short and direct to
the guns. In this case natural common sense is much more effective than
in the other two, which must depend upon local knowledge almost
entirely. But in all cases men to turn the grouse if they try to break
out have to be employed, and they are of no use unless they perfectly
understand what the grouse will do under every circumstance that may
arise. Some of these men are so clever that when shooters in the butts
are watching the operations and believe the big pack has broken out,
they suddenly see it turn and head straight to them. Then the gunners
recognise that the “pointsman,” if the simile is admissible, knows his
business better than they know it; for it is clear from their anxiety
that they in a similar situation would have shown themselves too soon,
and that the flag-man has timed the occasion as accurately as a railway
pointsman switches a train on to another line of metals. The short
driving system may be exemplified by Lord Walsingham’s great
performance, when he got 1070 grouse to his own gun in the day in 20
short drives on a 2200 acre moor. The long drive system may be
exemplified by the first drive in the day at Mr. Rimington Wilson’s
Broomhead moor, where 6 drives in the day is the outside limit.
There is a great deal of difference of opinion upon the best form of
grouse butt, and some difference upon the best distances apart for them.
But these are not abstract questions, although in conversation and books
they are treated as if they were. Much depends upon the manner of
driving. When the birds are brought from a distance and concentrated, it
is clear that they cannot have got used to the sight of the butts on the
ground to which they are forced. On the other hand, in short drives the
birds are practically never off their own ground, and consequently get
used to the butts, however conspicuous they are, and do not fear them.
In this case nothing seems to be better than the horseshoe-shaped butt
built up of turfs with heather growing on the top. Slight modifications
of the horseshoe formation are best made when the butts are used
alternately to shoot grouse driven from opposite directions. It is then
well that the entrance should be an over-lap of one end.
But where grouse are brought off their own ground, and are not used to
the sight of peat cutters and their temporary stacking of the peat, it
seems that sunk butts are of the most value. The latter are much the
more costly to make, because they require draining at a depth of 3 or 4
feet below the surface. The manner of making these sunk butts is not to
excavate to the full height of a shooter’s gun arm, but to use the turf
taken out of a partial excavation for making a gradual slope up bank
close to the pit, a foot or two above the surrounding surface—the object
being that the bank thus made should look like a natural heather bank,
and not present a black surface of peats to the sight of approaching
grouse. The biggest bags ever made have been obtained with the upright
peat butts; but The Mackintosh, who has had the largest day’s bag in
Scotland, prefers sunk butts.
The latter gentleman also puts his butts nearer together than anyone
else. The nearest are about 15 yards apart. This would not suit most
people. Possibly, though, this too greatly depends upon the nature of
the driving. Twenty yards apart may be far enough for very high
pheasants, and may prevent two guns shooting at one bird. If grouse
happened to be equally high, as some ground might easily make them, the
danger of shooting other’s birds would be lessened, and butts could with
advantage be nearer together than where the grouse flew low. In the
beginning of driving, butts were built 80 yards apart, now they are
usually made at 50 yards intervals. Low flying grouse, going half-way
between butts 80 yards apart, cannot be dealt with; their nearest point
to a gun is 40 yards, but at the moment when they are between the butts
they cannot be safely shot at, and before they get there they are out of
range.
No doubt most missing of driven grouse is caused by shooting at them too
far away. This is the greatest fault of the novice. The next most
productive source of missing is shooting under coming birds and over
those that have passed the butts. After this, failure to allow enough
ahead of fast birds, to compensate for their movement while the shot is
going up, is the next most productive of missing, and shooting too much
in front of slow up-wind birds runs it hard.
Beating for grouse with dogs is usually done by going to the leeward end
of the day’s beat and then walking at right angles with the wind, and
turning into it at every march to the shooting, or boundary to the beat.
This, however, is a rule that has to be honoured by its breach, in the
hill districts particularly. Thus, when beating across the wind means
that one has to rise and sink at an angle of 45 degrees every time, such
a method has to give way. It also often happens when a fair breeze is
blowing that to start beating up wind near a boundary march means that
every bird will circle round and be carried by the wind out of bounds.
Then the rule again breaks down. The object is to drive the birds that
are not shot into ground to be beaten in the afternoon. This is best
done by an up-wind beat of the zigzag order when the wind is light, and
by a down-wind beat, starting from the windward march, when the wind is
fairly high, but not so high as to carry the game over the leeward
march. It usually happens that wind sinks about four o’clock in the
afternoon, or before. If this happens, it is a good plan to draw off and
go round to begin again at the leeward side of the ground into which the
morning birds have been driven. The majority of the Welsh moors are so
flat that they can be beaten in any direction, like those of Caithness,
but the Highland moors are as steep as the Welsh hills are before you
reach the heather ground. After you are once up in Wales, the walking is
easy in all directions. The Highland hills are very like those of Wales,
but with this great difference, the rises from the Scotch valleys are
clothed with heather and are the best grouse ground. In Wales this rise
is grass and fern-clad sheep farms, and often takes half a day’s work,
counting work as human energy, to surmount before shooting begins. For
this reason Providence created the Welsh pony.
The grouse have a very curious habit in the wet weather of affecting the
wettest and wildest parts of the moorland. Then, and only at that time,
you may find them mostly on the flat floe ground, where every foot of
peat is a miniature island, and where there is no shelter whatever from
the storm. This is probably because the grouse do not mind rain upon
them, but do very much mind brushing the wet heather with their
feathers. At such times grouse are generally wild, for they will not
“squat” and hide, but run very much. Then they usually have very good
scent, the dogs find and point them a long way, and then draw on and on
after them as the grouse run ahead. It is nevertheless just possible to
get good shooting by two guns going well ahead, very wide of the dogs,
and coming back to meet the point. It is the sun, not the wind or the
wet, that makes grouse hide in the heather, and probably the reason is
that they were originally an Arctic species, and can stand cold better
than very hot sun. In support of this view it may be said that grouse
disease seems to disappear in very cold weather, and moreover the red
grouse are, in everything but feather colouring and the white moult of
winter, the same as the willow grouse—an obviously Arctic race.
Amongst the methods of killing grouse that have almost died out are
first “becking,” second “kiting,” third “carting,” fourth shooting them
upon the stooks, and a variety of other devices for which the gun was
not used, such as snaring and netting.
Some of these methods of shooting had a great deal to recommend them.
First of all, “becking” is the art of hiding and the skill of calling
the grouse in the early morning, when this proud bird, exulting in his
superabundance of energy, rises into the air and crows defiance. He is
quite ready for battle, although it may not be the breeding season; for
they “beck” in August, as the author has often seen and heard through an
open window as he lay in bed waiting for the first breakfast-bell. The
loss of “becking” is the loss of an automatic destruction of the most
unfit, namely the old cocks, which are the only birds that will accept
the autumnal challenge, and come to make things hot for an unseen rival,
whose unrecognised voice sounds as if he had no right there.
“Kiting” has little to recommend it, except that it too is an automatic
preservation of the hens. They for the most part will not lie under the
kite, but make off at its first appearance upon the horizon. The
stronger and bolder cocks seem to delay matters until the thing gets
right above them, and then they too become scared, but dare not rise.
Thus they get kicked up and shot when the dogs can find them, which is
not always. When they are up, they twist under the kite like a snipe,
and are then more difficult to kill than by any other sporting method;
for they not only have a snipe’s twist, but about double their own usual
pace, exhibiting what the falcon will show any day of the week—that when
we think birds in a drive are doing their level best they are in reality
taking things easy. The writer has shot at driven grouse with a falcon
in actual chase. The grouse was seen to be approaching some distance,
perhaps 50 yards, before it crossed. There was no time to shoot in
front, and upon turning round it was seen that both grouse and falcon
were already out of range, but there was a high wind blowing at the time
this happened on the “tops” at Farr, in Inverness-shire.
“Carting” grouse is a poaching trick, based upon the knowledge that the
birds take very little notice of a cart, even when they will rise a
quarter of a mile away from a man on foot. The shooting is done from the
cart.
Shooting grouse on the stooks has only this in its favour: it pleases
the farmers. It is a butchery of those killed and a waste of many
wounded. But to hide up and shoot grouse as they come into the
oat-fields, whether uncut or in stook, is good sport. The birds do not
usually travel as fast as in grouse driving, but they are quite as
difficult, because they come so unexpectedly and silently. To make the
best work, it does not do to trust to hiding behind a wall, or on the
other side of a stook, because the grouse are as likely to come from one
direction as the other. The best plan is to build a grouse butt with the
oat stooks, in order that the shooter may straighten his back; for
nobody is so expert as to be able to shoot well from a crouching
position, although kneeling is just possible, and most uncomfortable.
Another form of grouse shooting used to be called “gruffing” in
Yorkshire. It was common everywhere, although it may not have a name
elsewhere. The method was for a single gun to approach hillocks on the
shady side and walk round them to the sunny side, when grouse that had
long become too wild to approach openly would often lie and afford good
easy marks by this method. This is only workable on nice sunny days, and
only practicable as late as October and November between 10 a.m. and 2
p.m.
There is a wet-day method by which the author has killed a good many
grouse. It is with a retriever to walk the roads that traverse the
moors, or, better still, to ride a shooting pony along them. The wildest
grouse will sometimes take no notice of a passenger along the well
recognised roads, and they must be very unreasonable indeed if they mind
a mounted man. Your retriever will find all the grouse on the windward
side of the roads, and they will generally rise within shot. Why they
should affect the roadsides in wet weather is not so easily explained,
but probably it is that they prefer to sit on the roads themselves,
where their feathers are not in contact with wet heather. If so, they
just move off in time not to be seen by the coming traveller.
It has been said that grouse lie better to a black-and-tan and to a red
setter than to parti-coloured dogs in which white prevails. There is no
truth in this in a general way. After white dogs have been used until
grouse will no longer lie, they will often lie to either a black-and-tan
or a red dog, but only for a day, and only a few of them for that short
addition to the length of the dogging season.
Possibly they take the black-and-tan for a collie, and the red dog for a
fox. On one occasion the author saw grouse treat a red dog in a way
extraordinary anywhere, except in the west and north of Scotland and in
Ireland; but this was in the Lowlands of Scotland, where the grouse were
wild by instinct. The birds were seen to be standing up in front of the
pointing Irishman and flicking their tails in his face, and even when
the dog drew on they merely just kept their distance, still flicking
their tails. There was not the slightest attempt at hiding. Probably
this is the method they have when approached by a fox; it differs
greatly from the behaviour of the average grouse before the man and the
ordinary dog. Then crouching and creeping are characteristics of the
race, unless they are of the wild sort, when standing up to look for an
enemy is habitual, and flying upon sight is characteristic.
[Since writing the foregoing remarks, Mr. Charles Christie, of Strathdon
Estate Office, has very kindly, with the assent of Sir Charles Forbes,
made a search for the oft misquoted records of the Delnadamph bag of
1872. The bag was 7000 birds, not brace, and 1314 brace of these were
killed over dogs in five days by four guns, whose best effort resulted
in 435 brace. The guns were Lord Dunmore, Lord Newport (now Lord
Bradford), Mr. George Forbes, and the late Sir Charles John Forbes.
Sir Charles Forbes’ Edinglassie moor yielded 8081 birds in 1900.
Probably the record bag over dogs was the 10,600 grouse killed at
Glenbuchat in 1872, where Mr. James W. Barclay (the owner) very kindly
informs the author that driving was not started until after that year,
whereas the greater number were killed by that plan at Delnadamph in
1872.]