The Complete English Wing Shot

by George Teasdale Teasdale-Buckell

From these figures we are not able to gather that driving and no dog work has acted as a means of preservation and an increase of the stock, but that it has enabled the grouse to be killed when they were there, as they undoubtedly were in 1879, when the driving was so little understood that it did not materially assist the bags for the season, as may be gathered from the bag for the day quoted above. Nothing can be gathered from these bags to suggest that anything like a remedy for the stagnation spoken of has been discovered, and we hope in vain, year by year, to see that advance of from 400 to 800 per cent. spoken of by Lord Walsingham, eighteen years ago, in regard to Yorkshire.

It has been already pointed out that by draining a moor one may often add a third to its heather-bearing land, and also that by removing a sheep to the acre one conserves about ten times the heather food a grouse eats. Yet neither of these methods has made very much difference anywhere. Both have done something to add to the stock in places, and both have also been disappointing in other places. Surely there must be some reason that has not only never been discovered, but has not even been looked for. It has been shown that were it only a question of heather food, the removal of sheep, where they are one to an acre, would multiply the grouse capacity of the moors by ten times, and the author believes that the majority of moors have on them, even when they carry sheep, ten times the heather the grouse require. If the former, to say nothing of the latter, is approximately true, then there must be something besides heather the grouse require, and the absence of which, in quantities, prevents their increase beyond two to an acre even on the most favourable moors.

There is no doubt from the above facts that there is some such want, but what it is the author can only speculate upon. It appears likely that what is wanted by all young grouse, as by all young animals of other kinds, is proteid. Young birds of all kinds take it in the form of insects, or artificial substitutes. That little grouse begin at once to eat heather is true, but it has never been proved that they can be reared on heather and nothing else. On the other hand, it has been proved that they can be reared without heather, provided they get plenty of insect food. They appear to be almost the easiest of game birds to rear, provided they have leave to help themselves to the insects of the fields, or are supplied with crissel and ants’ eggs by hand. For these reasons the author has arrived at the opinion that, provided the young grouse could be supplied with proteid (insects) for the first three weeks of life, the heather is sufficient to support ten times the numbers found upon the moors in most cases. Of course this could only be done by hand rearing of the birds. But as the grouse seem to lay more readily in confinement than partridges, and as these latter most particular birds have, by the French system, been doubled and doubled again, there seems to be no reason why grouse should not be increased in the same way.

It may be said that disease would stop anything of the kind, but those who advocate the increase of grouse to shoot by the decrease of the parent stock have, it is to be hoped, had their innings. It can be proved that where breeding grouse are kept up to the highest point, there also they are the most healthy.

The author has doubts whether it is desirable to increase the hand rearing of game; but in a book on shooting and game preservation the ethics of sport are not practical if they limit production in any way.

The red grouse (Lagopus scoticus) may be shot from the morning of the 12th of August to the evening of the 10th of December. Heather burning is legal at all times in England, but only from 1st of November to 10th of April in Scotland, which is another means by which an Act of Parliament has damaged the interests of the grouse shooter, since it generally happens that not enough heather burning can be done in the winter months, and September and October are quite as necessary burning months as March itself.

METHODS OF SHOOTING THE RED GROUSE

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.