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.]