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.