1RLF
me os,
I
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
ADVERTISEMENT.
SINCE the article " Shooting," written for the cur-
rent edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
was published in that work, the " Oakleigh Shoot-
ing Code'" 1 has been withdrawn as a separate publi-
cation ; but so much of it as was deemed worth
preserving has been embodied in the treatise from
the Encyclopaedia, which is now re-published, with
large additions, in the following pages.
1st May, 1840.
Of men
The happiest he, who far from public rage,
Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired,
Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life.
* * -;. * *
Rich in content ; in Nature's bounty rich,
In herbs and fruits ; whatever greens the spring,
When heaven descends in showers ; or bends the bough
When summer reddens, and when autumn beams ;
Or in the wintry glebe whatever lies
Concealed!
TJie Seasons , Autumn.
THE
SHOOTER'S HAND-BOOK.
THE
SHOOTER'S HAND-BOOK
THE TREATISE ON SHOOTING
THE ROD AND THE GUN,"
BV THE AUTHOR OP
THE OAKLEIGH SHOOTING CODE."
EDINBURGH:
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE.
M.DCCC.XLH.
ADVERTISEMENT.
SINCE the article " Shooting," written for the
current edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
was published in that work, " The Oakleigh Shoot-
ing Code" has been withdrawn as a separate publi-
cation ; but so much of it as was deemed worth
preserving, was embodied in the treatise from the
Encyclopaedia, and republished, with some addi-
tions, in a volume entitled " The Rod and the
Gun," the Shooting portion of which is now given
separately in these pages under a new title, that of
" The Gun" having been appropriated to a treatise
on the manufacture of Fire-Arms, by another
writer.
INTRODUCTION.
THAT his book might have its hero and scene of
operations, the author in his former work drew a
sportsman, a manor-house, and a manor. The
sportsman was and how could he be otherwise ?
what Wordsworth somewhere calls
" A lover of the meadows, and the woods,
And mountains"
who rhapsodized on purple heaths, like a true High-
lander. He dwelt in the centre of his own domain,
where, in a richly wooded and craggy dell, stood
the Oakleigh old Manor-Hall, " a vast and vener-
able pile," begrimed by the dusty hand of Time,
but crumbling not beneath his mouldering touch.
It presented a rude mass of Gothic masonry, whose
" stony strength" had laughed " a siege to scorn !"
Not far from the Manor-hall reposed, in primeval
simplicity, the secluded village of Oakleigh. As
the houses there were remarkable for their uniform
antiquity, so the people and the trees, the vicar's
INTRODUCTION.
rooks and the " steeple daws," were notorious for
their longevity. Had a village Rip van Winkle
of 1 680 been aroused from his century and a half of
slumber, and placed on the steps of the tavern,
looking up the dell above the green mill-meadows,
he would have seen -just as they appeared before
the Eeformation the grey old Hall and the
heronry behind it ! the deer still browsing in the
deep shades of that most umbrageous of parks !
the swans still floating on the miniature lake !
the winged griffins on the columns at the park-
gates, still watchful as the dragon that guarded the
golden fruit in the orchard of the Hesperides !
the trees and ivy still embowering the lodge !
and, in the distance, the grouse-hills still unin-
closed !
Oakleigh was famous for its yews and its hollies
for the large growth and dark foliage of its forest-
trees for its innumerable birds of song for its
rich water-meadows and sunny gardens for the
narrowness and steepness of its lanes and the
height of its hawthorn hedges ! From the river to
the Hall, the country was an Eden in fertility !
but beyond the woods behind and above the Hall,
a different clime presented itself: on the one hand
a wilderness of heather, and on the other a wide-
ranging, treeless view of smooth-turfed limestone
hills studded with white rocks.
INTRODUCTION. 5
A fine old apartment in the Manor-hall had
served many purposes. If walls were biographers,
curious and eventful would have been the memoirs
recorded there. Masses to propitiate success, and
Te Deums for victories gained, had been celebrated
within it. During the wars of the Roses, often in-
to that room, at the sound of the festal gong, had
the dancing minstrels chaunting the " Caput apri
defero!" ushered in the boar's head "garnished
with rosemary," and the steaming haunch, to re-
gale the turbulent partizans of the house of Tudor !
And in after-times, the noisy Cavaliers made it re-
sound with laughter at the expense of their puri-
tanical opponents ! It was a large, dusky, oak-
wainscoted room, wherein but little of sun-light
entered, the large Gothic windows being stained
with heraldic devices. It was furnished with a
variety of antiquarian relics, to which pertained
divers superstitious legends coined in Catholic
times for the deception of Protestant posterity,
rusty armour, broken lances, housings, bridle-bits
and spurs that in the days of chivalry glittered
in the tournament, Saxon long bows, arrowless
quivers, cross-bows, falchions, antlers, hunting horns,
and fire-arms of every description, from the match-
lock of the reign of Hal of Agincourt, down to the
well-finished fowling-piece of the successors of Joe
Manton. It was furnished as a library also, and the
literary contents were as diversified as the
O INTRODUCTION.
The shelves creaked underneath the loads of learned
lumber; there were books of all sorts, including
the ancient classics, and the vernacular from the
clumsy tomes of antiquarian Dugdale to the dap-
per type of the last annual. The ancient and
the modern were strikingly contrasted, or rather
blended, for there was an union of both of an-
cient grandeur and of modern luxury combining
at once a baronial, a sporting, and a literary ap-
pearance ! On the walls were hung the portraits
of all the Oakleighs of Oakleigh ! fair ladies !
mailed warriors ! shaven priests ! gallant knights !
and sturdy squires ! amidst an assemblage of
hoops, feathers, ruffles, and long swords and perri-
wigs and queues of every cut, curl, tie, form, and
twist.
Conviviality reigned at the old Hall of Oakleigh
after the good old English fashion. The hills by
day, and the walls by night, reverberated the
sportsman's voice. As of yore, in that mansion of
other days, the song was sung and the tale was
told ; Welcome presided ; and Mirth and Modera-
tion two fellows who seemed never to grow old
were rarely absent.
Guests from the South, who annually rusticated
at Oakleigh in autumn, not so much to partake of
the in-door hospitality of
That pleasant place of all festivity,
as to share in the sports of the field, the means of
INTRODUCTION. 7
enjoying which were there so amply afforded, in
times past had been wont to ask a multitude of
questions on sporting subjects ; which nuisance
was at last abated, since the querist was no longer
answered, otherwise than by a general reference to
the canons of the Oakleigh Shooting Code, which
Tom Oakleigh, thus was our sportsman dubbed,
had inscribed on a huge scroll in the Hall of Shields,
the fine old apartment before spoken of, for
the information of all persons unacquainted with
the manorial usages and sporting bye-laws of that
ancient demesne !
Such was the supposed origin of the Shooting
Code, a considerable portion of which has been
transferred to these pages.
SHOOTING.
A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE WEAPONS OF THE CHASE ;
AND OF SOME OF THE SPORTS AND PASTIMES THAT
PRECEDED THE USE OF THE GUN.
THE pursuit and destruction of wild animals for
security, food, clothing, or pastime, have been
among the occupations of men in all ages, since
the primeval bruere overspread the earth,
And wild in woods the noble savage ran !
Before the more refined arts are introduced into
any country, the chase is a necessity, and the chief
business of life. The stronger and more noxious
animals are destroyed for individual safety ; the
weaker for food. It is not until civilisation and
her handmaid luxury have seated themselves, that
the chase becomes a pastime. Nor does it appear
when the sportsman first sprang into existence.
There is no corresponding word in any ancient lan-
guage, since that could not be called a sport which
10 SHOOTING.
was a necessity. It is probable that in the earliest
ages of society, the dog was the sole agent employed
by the hunter. Afterwards various weapons, ma-
nual, missile, and projectile as the club, the dart,
the arrow, were used by the hunter and fowler.
Then would follow springes, traps, nets, and all
that class of devices for the capture of beasts and
birds ferce naturce, comprehended in the term toils.
As dogs were employed to hunt quadrupeds, so, in
process of time, hawks were trained to bring down
birds for the service of their master. The arbalest
or cross-bow, preceded the matchlock, which, how-
ever, could scarcely be called an implement of the
chase, but which, in the order of succession, brings
us down to the rifle, and original fowling-piece
with its long heavy barrel, and flint and steel lock;
and lastly, we arrive at the double barrels and de-
tant locks of the modern shooter.
In the days of the Saxon and Norman kings, and
long previously, the Britons were famous for their
skill in archery, both in war and in the chase.
The accuracy of aim and power of projecting an
arrow from a bow which they possessed, almost
surpasses credibility ; and that the manly character
of the exercise should not degenerate, laws were
enacted interdicting the use of bows under a certain
strength, and arrows under a certain length. Phy-
sical strength but it is rather sleight than strength
which contributes to success in archery is account-
ed honourable among all savage nations; it was
always deemed an accomplishment by the nations
of antiquity. Homer's heroes are as well known
ARCHERY. FALCONRY. J 1
by their physical as their moral and intellectual
qualities. Addison makes the crafty Syphax, who
is unwilling to acknowledge the inferiority of his
countrymen to the Romans, exclaim,
Do they with tougher sinews bend the bow ;
Or flies the javelin swifter to its mark,
Launch 'd by the vigour of a Roman arm?
The feats of the bow were often introduced into
the songs of the Bards of the ancient Britons, and
into the ballads of the Troubadours.
Archery is now confined to shooting at the tar-
get. Ladies not unfrequently contend for the prize
in this elegant amusement. Their bows, however,
are not such as were used by the amazons of yore,
nor are those of the gentlemen of the archery clubs
such as decided the battle of Cressy.
Falconry, coeval with, and subsequent to the
decline of archery, occupied that rank in British
field sports which is now enjoyed by shooting.
Falconry is of high antiquity ; but at what time
hawks were first trained to the sport does not
appear. Aristotle informs us, that " there was a
district in Thrace, in which boys used to assemble
at a certain time of the year, for the sake of bird-
catching ; and that the spot was much frequented
by hawks, which were wont to appear on hearing
themselves called, and would drive the little birds
into the bushes, where they were caught."
Martial has the following epigram on the fate of
a hawk :
Praedo fuit volucrum, famulus nunc aucupis, idem
Decipit, et captas non sibi, mcerit, aves.
1 2 SHOOTING.
The hawk was originally fastened to a twig or
stake, as a decoy to entice birds under the net or
to the limed twigs, which, says Pennant, " is a
method still in use in Italy. The Italians call it
Uccelare con la civetta ; for instead of a hawk, they
place a small species of owl on a pole, in the middle
of a field, and surround it, at various distances,
with lime twigs. The small birds, from their
strange propensity to approach rapacious fowls, fly
around, perch on the rods, and are taken in great
numbers. A hawk would serve the purpose full as
well."
There is no record of trained hawks previous to
the time of Ethelred. Under the Welsh laws of
Hoel Dha, (A.D. 940), " the falconer has a privi-
lege the day that the hawk shall kill a bittern, or
a heron, or a curlew. Three services shall the
king perform for the falconer on such a day ; hold
his stirrup whilst he dismounts; hold the horse
whilst he goes after the birds ; and hold his stirrup
whilst he mounts again. Three times shall the
king that night compliment him at table."
Shakspeare often uses the language of falconry.
It is chiefly employed in a scene in the second part
of Henry VI., wherein the king, queen, lord pro-
tector, and cardinal, are the chief speakers ; which
goes to prove, that the falconer's terms were, at one
time, household words at the English court.
Isaac Walton, the father of anglers, has told the
praises of hawking in a conversation between an
angler, a hunter, and a fowler, wherein each de-
scribes his own craft. Thus the fowler mounts
FALCONRY. 13
his hobby: " And first, for the element that
I used to trade in is the air an element of more
worth than weight an element that doubtless ex-
ceeds both the earth and the water ; for though I
sometimes deal in both, yet the air is most properly
mine I and my hawks use that most, and it yields
us most recreation ; it stops not the high soaring
of my noble generous falcon, in it she ascends to
such a height, as the dull eyes of beasts and fish
are not able to reach to their bodies are too gross
for such elevations : in the air my troops of hawks
soar up on high, and when they are lost in the
sight of men, then they attend upon and converse
with the gods ; therefore, I think my eagle is so
justly styled Jove's servant in ordinary : and that
very falcon, that I am now going to see, deserves
no meaner title, for she usually in her flights en-
dangers herself, like the son of Daedalus, to have
her wings scorched by the sun's heat, she flies so
near it, but her mettle makes her careless of dan-
ger ; for she then heeds nothing, but makes her
nimble pinions cut the fluid air, and so makes her
high way over the steepest mountains and deepest
rivers, and in her glorious career looks with con-
tempt upon those high steeples and magnificent
palaces which we adore and wonder at ; from which
height I can make her to descend by a word from
my mouth, (which she both knows and obeys,) to
accept of meat from my hand, to own me for her
master, and to go home with me, and be willing
the next day to afford me the like recreation."
"Walton, who seems to have been almost as conver-
14 SHOOTING.
sant with hawking as with angling, enumerates
twenty kinds of hawks then used, and adds that
there were others which he " forbore to mention.''''
He is learned in the phraseology of the day ; he
speaks of " their ayries, their mewings, rare order
of casting, and the renovation of their feathers ;
their reclaiming and dieting." Mews were places
where hawks were kept, as the Mews at Pimlico,
on the site of which, or near thereto, stands Buck-
ingham Palace. " The Park," (St. James's,) says
Mr. Evelyn,* "was at this time (A.D. 1664-65)
stored with numerous flocks of severall sorts of
ordinary and extraordinary wild fowle, breeding
about the decoy, which for being neare so greate a
city, and among such a concourse of souldiers and
people, is a singular and diverting thing."
Hawking was once the occupation only of the
great ; it afterwards became a more general amuse-
ment. The large sums given for superior hawks, in
the days of the Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts,
prove the high estimation in which the sport was
then held. The falcons of most repute were im-
ported from Iceland and other foreign countries,
the various native species being deemed of an in-
ferior description.
Hunting and archery, which were then almost
synonymous terms, for the sport was somewhat
similar to deer-stalking, the rifle being now substi-
tuted for the bow, were in high reputation with
the Danish, Saxon, and Norman kings, whence
arose the forest laws. Wolves and boars, which
* Diary of John Evelyn, Esq., vol. ii. p. 234.
ANCIENT FOEEST LAWS. 15
formerly infested the woods, were nearly extermi-
nated in King Edgar's time, when that monarch
prohibited the killing of deer and game in his
woods. The punishment depended upon the will
of the king, until the celebrated forest laws of
Canute, which defined the rights and privileges of
the monarch and others ; but those laws were little
regarded by succeeding kings, whose arbitrary will
afterwards regulated the laws of the forest. " Be-
sides other prerogatives of the Saxon kings," says
Selden, " they had a franchise for wild beasts
for the chase, which we commonly call forest,
being a precinct of ground, neither parcel of the
county, nor the diocess, nor the kingdom, but
rather appendant thereto." And these preroga-
tives, he quaintly observes, were maintained, " that
the world might see the happiness of England,
where beasts enjoy their liberty as well as men."
Another old writer says, that " the Saxon Kings
and the Danish King Canute made no new Forests,
but were contented with the Woods that were
their own Demesnes, and were never granted to,
or possessed by the Subject ; but the kings of the
Norman Race, not being satisfied with sixty-eight
old Demesne Woods or Forests, depopulated well-
built Towns and Villages, to make to themselves
Places appropriated to their own Diversion only.
William the Conqueror laid waste thirty-six Towns
in Hampshire to make a Forest, which still retains
the Name of the New Forest ; and his Forest Offi-
cers exercised such arbitrary Rule, as to abridge
even the great Barons of the Privileges they en-
16 SHOOTING.
joyed under the Saxon and Danish Kings, not at
all regarding the Liberties given to the Subject by
Canute's Forest Laws. His son, William Rufus,
is recorded in History for the Severity of his Pro-
ceedings against all that hunted in his Forests,
inflicting the Punishment of Death upon such as
killed a Stag or Buck in his Forests, without any
other Law than that of his own Will." The kill-
ing of deer was punished with loss of sight by
William the Conqueror.* William Rufus " did
so severely forbid hunting a deer, that it was felony
and a hanging matter to have taken a stag or
buck."-f- In Cceur de Lion's time, the law was
very severe against offenders taking the king's
venison ; it was even unlawful to carry a bow, or
take dogs through a royal forest ; to quote the
dog-latin of the day, " Qui arcus vel sagittas por-
taverint vel canes duxerint sine copula per forestam
Regis, et inde attaintus fuerit, erit in miserecordia
Regis." J This, however, did not apply to dogs
which had been expeditated, that is, " which had
three claws of the fore foot cut off by the skin."
The forest laws professed to be for the protec-
tion of " vert and venison." Vert was whatsoever
bore green leaves, and afforded food or cover to the
deer ; and venison signified such beasts of the forest
or the chase as were the food of man. When read-
ing old books, it is necessary to keep in mind this
acceptation of the word venison.
This state of things continued until by the
* John Selden. f William of Malmsbury.
J England's Epinomis.
THE FOREST CHARTER. 17
Cliarta de Foresta the forest laws were better de-
fined and the penalties mitigated. The vast im-
portance attached to the Forest Charter may be
inferred from the fact, that although granted by
King John at Runnymede, at the same time as the
Great Charter, it was not incorporated in it, but
was made the subject of a separate and distinct
document. The Forest Charter was likewise con-
firmed by Henry III., contemporaneously with
the Great Charter. On the latter occasion the
Forest Charter was counter-signed by sixty-four
bishops, abbots, and barons ; and sentence of ex-
communication against all persons who should
violate it was, with great ceremony, denounced
in Westminster Hall, by the archbishop, in the
presence of the king, bishops, and nobles, the
bishops being robed and bearing torches.
The oath administered, at twelve years of age,
to every young man dwelling within the precincts
of a royal forest, was in the following rhymes :
You shall true Liege-Man be
Unto the King's Majesty :
Unto the Beasts of the FOREST you shall no hurt do,
Nor to any Thing that doth belong thereunto :
The Offences of others you shall not conceal,
But to the utmost of your Power, you shall them
reveal
Unto the OFFICERS of the FOREST,
Or to them who may see them redrest :
All these things you shall see done,
80 help you GOD, at his HOLY DOOM !
18 SHOOTING.
There is something attractive to the imagina-
tion associated with the history of the ancient
British forests. A modern manor gives but a poor
idea of what a sporting territory once was. The
lord of a forest was a petty monarch ; he held his
courts, and tried his prisoners ; he dwelt, aloof
from towns and villages, embosomed amidst the
uninclosed moorlands and woodlands that sur-
rounded his castellated mansion, and war, love,
and sporting were his chief pursuits, the business
of his life. If there be now any remnant of the
semblance of ancient rural state, it must be looked
for in the establishment of some Scottish Lowland
chief or Highland laird. The age of civil wars,
chivalry, and feudal ceremony is gone ; but there
is much in Scotland to remind us of the days of
yore. The Highland noble the laird of an ex-
tensive but thinly populated district in his own
immediate neighbourhood is looked up to as a prince.
Mountain, river, lake, and glen are his ; his are
the ancestral forests, where the black, the red, and
the white grouse wing their flights, undisturbed by
the advances of civilisation, and the red deer and
roe-buck, unimpeded by fence or fastness, range at
will, the red deer on the unplanted waste, the
roe in the woods !
But to return. After the Forest Charter was
granted, any one was allowed to kill game, except
in certain privileged places. The places privileged
were of four descriptions, viz.aforest, a chase, a park,
and a warren. To these may be added a decoy for
water-fowl, which had also peculiar privileges. Of
FOREST. CHASE.- PARK. 19
these privileged places we collect the following par-
ticulars from various authorities. A Forest was a
certain territory of woody grounds and fruitful pas-
tures, privileged for wild beasts and fowls of forest,
chase, and warren, to rest and abide there in the
safe protection of the king for his delight and plea-
sure ; which territory of ground so privileged was
meered and bounded with unremoveable marks,
meers, and boundaries, and replenished with wild
beasts of venery or chase, and with great coverts
of vert for the succour of the said beasts there to
abide ; for the preservation and continuance of
which, there are particular officers, laws, and privi-
leges belonging to the same, requisite for that pur-
pose, and proper only to a forest and no other place.
Beasts of forest were properly hart, hind, buck, hare,
boar, and wolf, but legally all wild beasts of venery.
A purlieu was a portion of a forest which was dis-
afforested by the Charta de Foresta. A Chase was
a privileged place for receipt of deer and beasts
of the forest, and was of a middle nature, betwixt a
forest and park. It was commonly less than a
forest, and not endowed with so many liberties, as
officers, laws, courts, and yet was of a larger com-
pass than a park, having more officers and game
than a park. Every forest was a chase, but every
chase was not a forest. It differed from a park in
that it was not enclosed. Beasts of the chase are,
the buck, doe, fox, martern, and roe. A Park was
a large parcel of ground privileged for wild beasts
of chase by the king's grant, or by prescription. A
park must be enclosed. The beasts of park properly
20 SHOOTING.
extend to the buck, doe, fox ; but in common and
legal sense to all the beasts of the forest. A Free
Warren was a place privileged by prescription or
grant of the king, for the preservation of the beasts
and fowl of the warren, viz. hares, conies, partridges,
and pheasants. If a pheasant, or other bird of
warren, flew into a free warren, the falconer could
not follow it, but it became the property of the
owner of the warren. A Decoy for wild fowl is to
this day privileged, in so far as the owner has the
exclusive right to the birds frequenting it ; and no
person is allowed to fire a gun or otherwise make a
disturbance within a reasonable distance of it with-
out permission from the owner.
In the reign of Richard II. a landed qualifi-
cation of forty shillings per annum became neces-
sary to entitle a person to keep " any greyhound,
hound, dog, ferret, net, or engine, to destroy deer,
hares, conies, or any other gentleman's game."
The qualification required was increased with the
improved value of land, from time to time, until,
in Charles the Second"^ reign, it was enacted, that
persons not having ] 00 per annum arising from
freehold, or ]5Q from leasehold property, or not
being of the degree of esquire, or otherwise privi-
leged, should not keep or use " any guns, bows,
greyhounds, setting dogs, ferrets, coney-dogs, lur-
chers, hays, nets, lowbels, hare-pipes, guns, snares,
or other engines for taking or killing game."
It was not until the early part of the reign of
George III. that killing game was taxed as a
luxury, and made a source of revenue to govern-
GAME LAWS. 21
ment. A tax of two guineas was first imposed on
all persons who should go out in pursuit of game ;
but the price of the certificate was afterwards
raised to three guineas, and subsequently to three
and a half guineas. The property qualification is
abolished, and now any person who has taken out
a certificate and obtained permission from the owner
or tenant of the land, in which soever the right at
the time may happen to be, is privileged to kill
game at all seasonable times. During a long period
the sale of game was prohibited, which gave a pe-
culiar value to it, as it was not attainable by any
but qualified and certificated persons and their
friends, except by indirect means. It is now
publicly sold by persons taking out licences for
the purpose, and such licenced persons are liable to
penalties, and are incapacitated from renewing their
licences, should they purchase game from any but
duly certificated sportsmen. The licenced dealers
are, however, largely supplied by poachers, not-
withstanding the penalties to which they subject
themselves by trading with uncertificated persons.
Falconry fell into dissuetude in the days of the
Georges. It is now scarcely known but by name,
although the honorary distinction of hereditary
Grand Falconer of England is still extant. As fal-
conry fell into disuse, another kind of sport, which
is now considered as disreputable, and practised
only by poachers, was pursued by the country
gentlemen ; the capturing of birds of the game
species by means of nets and setting dogs. The
dogs were trained to lie down when near to game,
22 SHOOTING.
and to suffer the net to be drawn over them, so
that both dog and birds were entangled in the toil.
In this manner partridges are still frequently taken
by poachers in the night. A poacher's dog is
sometimes known by his habit of crouching when
close upon game, and this circumstance not unfre-
quently leads to a detection of the practices of his
master. Netting was considered as a fair mode
of taking game until the fowling-piece came into
general use.
At the time of the accession of the house of Han-
over, falconry, netting, and shooting, were contem-
porary amusements. The number of shooters was
very limited, the inferiority of the guns and am-
munition being such as not to induce their general
adoption ; hawking was going out of favour ; and,
of the three sports, netting was the most commonly
practised, until the beginning of the reign of George
III., after which time it was no longer deemed the
sport of gentlemen. At what time the fowling-piece
first came into use is uncertain. We learn from
Pope that pheasant shooting was in vogue in Wind-
sor forest during the reign of Anne :
See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings ;
Short is his joy, he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground !
Shooting as practised with guns to which flint
and steel locks were attached may be said to have
risen and fallen with the Georgian era. During
the latter part of that period, great improvements
were made in all the implements and materials of
BRITISH FIELD SPORTS. 23
shooting. Double barrels came into use, horse-nail
stubs were employed in the manufacture of barrels,
the patent breech and percussion-cap were invented,
and the wire-cartridge has since been introduced.
Not the least improvement has been that in the
manufacture of gunpowder. The excellence of our
guns and dogs has tended much to spread the love
of shooting, which has become the most popular and
universal of British field-sports.
It has been remarked, that ours is pre-eminently
the land of sportsmen the very name being un-
known in all other countries. The observation
is in a great measure true, for, if we look around
the globe, we find that wherever wild animals
are killed for the sake of sport, it is mostly by
the Englishman. In Sweden the Englishman
alone kills the bear for sport. The natives kill
it for the sake of reward, or to rid themselves of
a noxious neighbour. In Asia, the only sportsman
that encounters the royal tiger is the Englishman ;
the native shekerrie shoots the tiger for profit.
There also the buffalo and the boar are hunted by
the Englishman alone. In Africa, it is the Eng-
lishman who hunts the lion, the hippopotamus, and
the giraffe. And in America, it is the English-
man, or English settler, who hunts the panther,
the bison, and the bear, for sport ; the natives do
so from necessity. Since, then, the Englishman is
the universal sportsman, it behoves the officer, the
emigrant, and the tourist, to make themselves ac-
quainted not only with what may be called the first
principles of sporting, but more especially with the
24 SHOOTING.
sports peculiar to the countries to which they are
proceeding, a theoretical knowledge of which may
be gleaned from the volumes which annually proceed
from the pens of our travelled countrymen.
THE RIFLE.
The fire-arms chiefly used by the sportsman are
the rifle, and the fowling-piece ; the latter may be
classified into the swivel-gun, which is fired from a
rest, and the shoulder-gun. A short, wide-bored
musket, charged with a round or oval iron ball, was
formerly used for the destruction of such animals
as the lion, tiger, or bear. In modern times, the
musket has been superseded by the rifle, and the
iron ball by a leaden one, hardened with tin or zinc,
and weighted with quicksilver. A short piece is
said to be preferred to a long one for shooting tigers,
bears, and the like, as it may be more readily loaded,
and is more easily managed in cases of emergency ;
indeed, we apprehend the shooter should seldom
fire, except when the animal is so near to him that
if he aim coolly he cannot fail to lodge a ball
effectively.
THE RIFLE. 25
We subjoin the methods of taking aim at wild
beasts from practical sporting writers. Mr. Lloyd
says,* " If a man purposes attacking a bear at close
quarters, a double gun is decidedly the best ; if it be
in the winter season, a detonator is very preferable.
Owing to having flint locks, both my barrels, on one
occasion, missed fire, which might have been attended
with most serious consequences ; a large ball is very
desirable. The best points to hit a bear, or any
other animal, are in the forehead, in the breast, un-
der the ear, or at the back of the shoulder ; bullets
placed in other parts of the body of an old bear usu-
ally have little immediate effect. If the snow be
deep, and the bear is crossing a man, he should al-
ways aim very low ; he must often, indeed, fire into
the snow, if he expects to hit the heart of the
beast." Captain Williamson gives the following
instructions for shooting tigers :-f- "If the motion
of an animal through the grass be perceived, the
nearest elephant should be halted ; and its left
shoulder being pointed towards the moving object,
is the most favourable position for taking a good
aim. The hunter should fire without hesitation,
observing to proportion his level as far within the
space between himself and the tops of the yielding
grass as the height of the cover may dictate ; by
this precaution equally necessary when shooting
fish that are in any degree beneath the surface of
* Field Sports of the North of Europe, by L. Lloyd, Esq. London,
1828.
*|- Oriental Field Sports, by Captain Thomas Williamson. London,
1805.
26 SHOOTING.
the water the iron ball will, in general, take effect."
Tiger-hunting, on horseback or on foot, is perhaps
the most perilous pursuit the sportsman can engage
in ; but as now chiefly conducted in India, it is not
a very dangerous sport. The sportsman, secure in-
his castled howdah, cannot be surprised by ambus-
cade, and he has little to fear from the enraged
brute at bay ; but unless he be a clever horse-
man and adroit " pig-sticker," hog- hunting is
fraught with more danger. Comparing that sport
with tiger -hunting, Captain Mundy says, " To
the hog-hunting of Bengal, the palm of sporting
supremacy must certainly be adjudged. Few, who
have had opportunities of enjoying both in perfec-
tion, will balance between the tiger and the boar.
In the pursuit of the former shikkar, the sports-
man though there are certainly some casual risks
to heighten the interest and add to the excitement
feels himself, in his pride of place, ten feet above
the ground, comparatively secure ; and, should any
accident befall him, it is generally traceable to the
misconduct of the elephant, or the timidity of the
mahout, whose situation, poor devil ! with a furious
tiger before him, and a bad shot behind him, is any
thing but enviable. In the boar-hunt, on the con-
trary, the sportsman depends entirely on his own
adroitness. To have any chance of distinguishing
himself, he must have the seat and the judgment
of a fox-hunter, the eye of a falconer, the arm of
a lancer and above all, a horse fleet, active, bold,
and well-in-hand."* If the size of the game be
* Sketches in India, by Captain Mundy. London, 1833.
THE RIFLE. 27
a criterion to judge of sport, the palm must be
awarded to elephant-shooting. It holds high rank
where the lion and the tiger are not found. " Ele-
phant-shooting," says Major Forbes, " in excit-
ing interest, as far exceeds any other sport in
Ceylon as does the animal itself, compared with
the lesser tenants of the forest." He adds, " A
sportsman fairly equipped for elephant shooting,
ought to have at least four barrels, and the best
form of these would be two double-barrelled guns,
carrying balls of an ounce and a third in weight,
and of strength sufficient to take a large charge of
powder. I should prefer plain to rifle-barrels, as
they occupy less time in loading, which is some-
times of great consequence, and smooth barrels
carry balls with sufficient accuracy ; for shooting at
a distance is never successful in this sport, and it
is not advisable (if you have a choice) to fire until
you are within fifteen yards of the animal ; half
that distance is preferable, as then your shot if it
fails to kill will, in all probability, check him for
a sufficient time to allow of exchanging your gun
and hitting again."* A large ball is evidently a
favourite with the Major. He likewise bestows a
preference on the musket for elephant shooting, it
being sooner loaded. The mark being large, and
the distance of firing usually short, account for his
preference of the smooth bore in that sport. But
we apprehend there is no difference of opinion
amongst sportsmen, that a grooved barrel is the
* Eleven Years in Ceylon, by Major Forbes. London, 1840,
28 SHOOTING.
better weapon for any other jungle game ; the vul-
nerable, or more properly speaking the vital, parts
of a tiger or leopard present a mark which must be
deemed small when the excitement perhaps not
unmingled with something like fear attending the
rencontre is taken into consideration ; and when en-
gaged with such animals, precision of aim is essen-
tial to the personal safety of the sportsman. We
give Major Forbes's description of another kind of
sport he is speaking of the interior of Ceylon :
" Wild buffaloes, though commonly found in the
thinly inhabited districts of the flat country, are
very rarely seen near the mountains ; they are
strong and fierce, and the form of their head is
such that a ball fired against it is apt to glance off.
For this reason, sportsmen accustomed to buffalo-
shooting prefer aiming at the shoulder ; and, to
insure a fair shot, the best way is for two persons
to place themselves so that one may be opposite to
the side of the animal when it charges at the other
in front. A wild buffalo, intending to attack any
one, advances in a curved line, with the head down
and inclined sideways, in such a manner that one
horn is advanced. Their courage and perseverance
in attack are as remarkable as their tenacity of
life ; therefore, good guns of a large size are quite
as necessary in buffalo as in elephant shooting."
In 1826, it was found necessary to destroy an ele-
phant in Exeter 'Change. A detachment of foot
guards was called in, and directed by surgeons
where to fire ; and 152 rounds of ammunition were
expended before the animal was disabled. This
THE RIFLE. 29
proves how utterly ineffectual the leaden musket
ball, as used by soldiers, would be in the forest.
We have not the means of deciding whether the
difficulty which was experienced in killing that
elephant, is attributable to the inefficiency of the
weapons employed, or to the want of skill in the
storming party. Major Forbes hints that the
affair often proved a subject of mirth to the sports-
men in Ceylon ; and certainly it was calculated to
do so, if a single individual on foot allows a wild
elephant to charge within fifteen yards of him be-
fore firing at him. Captain Cornwallis Harris, in
his South African tour, in 1837, took with him a
double-barrelled rifle, carrying balls of two ounces
weight, and thus armed, the elephant and rhino-
ceros alike fell before him. Speaking of the fore-
head of the elephant, he says,* " A ball hard-
ened with tin or quicksilver readily penetrates to
the brain, and proves instantaneously fatal."-)- He
gives instances of his killing large elephants at a
single shot, and seems to have had no difficulty
with the " king of beasts," which he has slain " in
every stage from whelphood to imbecility." Accord-
ing to Captain Cornwallis Harris, travelling through
countries infested by wild beasts is not so dangerous
as it is commonly thought to be. He says, indeed,
that during part of his journey, " scarcely a day
passed without our seeing two or three lions, but,
like the rest of the animal creation, they uniformly
* Wild Sports of Southern Africa, by Captain William Cornwallis
Harris. London, 1839.
^ The specific gravity of a ball is increased by compression. Those
made for the public service are hardened and weighted by compres-
sion.
30 SHOOTING.
retreated when disturbed by the approach of man.
However troublesome we found the intrusions of
the feline race during the night, they seldom at any
other time shewed the least disposition to molest us
unless we commenced hostilities." He, however,
does justice to the terrors of the maned monarch
when he says, " those who have seen him in crip-
pling captivity only immured in a cage barely
double his own length, with his sinews relaxed by
confinement have seen but the shadow of that
animal which ' clears the desert with his rolling
eye ! ' T There ! with that roar we dismiss the
monsters carrion, after all, saving wild-boar hams,
buffalo steaks, and stewed elephant's feet, of the
peculiar delicacy of which we presume not to speak !
A sly shot in a walled park though it is not sport-
ing were worth fifty such broiling adventures.
Reader, cast thine eye across the page see with
what a temptation the young Bard of Avon was be-
set, and thou wilt forgive him from thy soul, though
he was a poacher. Thou smackest thy lips like an
alderman of the old school, or a common council-
man of the new thy thoughts are of venison only
natural enough, for the idea of sport is associ-
ated with something wild. Well ! statelier horns
are hidden only by a few intervening leaves. Let
us pass through the inclosure in which these spot-
ted creatures lie ; and, at one bound northwards,
we will land you where one or other of them
Trout and salmon, grouse and deer,
'Ploy the sportsman all the year !
FALLOW-DEER SHOOTING.
31
FALLOW-DEER SHOOTING.
There are only three kinds of deer in Great Bri-
tain, the red, the fallow, and the roe. The fal-
low-deer, distinguished from the rest by his dap-
pled* sides and palmated horns, was the dun-deer
of the days of Robin Hood the fat-buck of the
pasty-loving friar and he is still the common deer
of our English parks.
When firing at a deer, the aim should be low
behind the shoulder, or at the head. It is not
usual to fire at a deer which faces the gun. If near
enough to aim correctly, the rifleman cannot do
better than send a ball through the neck, close un^
der the ears. It may be remarked here, that the
* There is a variety not spotted.
32 SHOOTING.
last is the quickest mode of dispatching a dog,
horse, or any other domestic animal. When a deer
is wounded and separates from the herd one or two
dogs should be instantly slipped.
The modern terms applied to the male and female
fallow-deer are buck and doe, and to the young ones
fauns. To roe-deer ; buck and doe, and the young
ones kids. The mature red-deer, of whatever age,
is termed by the forest-keeper and deer-stalker a
hart, by the hunter a stag, the female is a hind, and
the young ones are calves. The red-deer is not
properly a hart until his sixth year, or until he
has attained his full-head, which is when each
beam is furnished with brow, bay and tray antlers,
and not fewer than two points at the top.
In olden times, when to be discovered at " dog-
draw"* or " stable-stand,"* in a forest, chase, or
purlieu, was as perilous to the personal freedom of
the individual, as if he had attempted the life of the
lord of the soil, the country swarmed with officers
whose titles and duties are all but forgotten, such as
agistors, bow-bearers, wood-wards, wardens, fores-
ters, rangers, regarders, verderors, all of whom were
in some way connected with the preservation of vert
and venison. The technical terms for every thing
connected with forests and deer were innumerable,
and entered into the common language of life, as did
afterwards the falconer's terms. The ceremonies too
* Dog-draw, in the ancient language of the chase, signified the
tracking, or drawing after deer with a hound or other dog. Stable-
stand was the act of standing in ambush with a bow and arrow, and
with deer hounds in leash ready to slip.
FALLOW-DEEK SHOOTING. S3
connected with deer were numerous ; for instance,
at the death of a hunted deer, after it was bled,
the person of highest rank present took say, that
is, made an incision to ascertain" the fatness. The
same personage had the privilege of cutting off the
head ; which ceremony being concluded, the hunter
first up at the death blew a triple mort, if the
quarry was a stag or hart ; or a double mort, if a
buck : and then the rest blew a recheat. They
then, for the amusement of the assembled peasantry,
concluded the ceremony with leashing, if they could
find a convenient victim some luckless wight who
had come too late into the field, or who had mis-
taken a term of art, or had hallooed a wrong deer,
or attempted to leave the field before the death.
The poor fellow was held either across the saddle
or on a man's back, and some one present claimed
the privilege of presenting him with ten pounds and
a purse, or, in other words, of administering ten
lashes with a pair of dog-couples tolerably severe,
and an eleventh, the purse, that was heavier than
all the other ten put together.
In those days, the male fallow-deer was called
during the first year a faun, the second a pricket,
the third a sorrel, the fourth a sore, the fifth a
buck of the first head, the sixth a buck. The
female fallow-deer was called during the first year
a faun, the second a pricket's sister, the third a
doe.* The buck comes in season the 8th of July,
and goes out at Holy- Rood Day, which is the 14th
* Nelson's Game Laws. London, 1736.
34 SHOOTING*
of September, The doe comes in season when the
buck goes out, and goes out at Twelfth-tide.*
The roe was called the first year a kid, the second
a girle, the third a hemuse, the fourth a roe-buck
of the first head, and the fifth a fair roe-buck.
The male red deer was called the first year a
calf, the second a brocket, the third a spayed (or
spire), the fourth a staggart, the fifth a stag, the
sixth a hart. The female red deer was called the
first year a calf, the second a brockefs-sister, and
the third a hind. If a hart was hunted by the
king, and escaped alive, he was called a Hart-Royal;
and if in hunting he was driven out of the forest
so far that he was not likely to return of himself,
and the king gave over hunting him, then, because
he had made such sport, he caused a proclamation
to be made in all the towns and villages near the
place to which he was pursued and hunted, that
no person should kill, hurt, or hunt him, and ap-
pointed certain foresters to look after him till he
returned to the forest, and afterwards he was called
a Hart- Royal- Proclaimed.^
As our sovereigns have ceased to pursue deer,
all harts having brow, bay, and tray antlers, and
crowned with three or more points on the extremity
of each horn, are now termed Harts-Royal.
* The Compleat Sportsman. London, 1762.
f Manwood's Forest Laics.
IPAIE.'S'IREB
DEER STALKING. 35
DEER STALKING.
By Jove ! we are upon them. Tread lightly,
crouch closely, speak lowly, breathe softly, while
we examine the situation of the herd with our
glasses, and the hill-men go round to give the deer
their wind and drive them to us.
SOUTHRON.
Amongst so many scores of hinds how few harts !
there are some large beasts, but not one good head.
How can I bear off a trophy from such a herd ? I
would have the horns of my first hart " hung up
like monuments" memorials of what I saw and
did in the North to relieve the tedium of after
hours of sluggish ease and inglorious repose. There
is nothing here in the shape of horn that a cutler
would give you half-a-crown for.
FORESTER.
Look lower down the glen : there are at least three
harts royal ; one has a crowned, another a palmed
top, and another magnificent creature ! his horns
are neither crowned, nor palmed, nor yet exactly
forked, but irregular, as those of most old harts are.
He is so much larger than the rest, that if we
wound him, I think I can trace him by his slot,
though he keep up with the herd. Now he turns
* The idea of giving this sketch in dialogue was suggested by a
late publication. It is a mode of writing not ill-adapted to an ex-
planation of some of the niceties of deer stalking an art which can
only be learned thoroughly on forest-ground.
36 SHOOTING.
this way. What horns! What a span! the
width between the horns is a sure indication of a
well-grown animal. He has a perfect head, " beam-
ed, branched, and summed," as they would have
said in old times. He has brow-antlers, sur-
an tiers, royals, and croches* perfect !
SOUTHRON.
He has brow, bay, and tray-antlers, and three
or four points on the top of each beam. He is grey
on the breast, face, haunches, and shoulder ! May
not that fine fellow be old enough to recollect the
war-whoop of Culloden ? Many a proud lord and
stalwart forester has been laid low since he first
browsed on the braes.
FORESTER.
Move quietly, or those listening watchful hinds
will betray us. Hinds must have been unknown
to the ancients ; or they would never have invented
such a non-descript as Argus, since a two-eyed
hind would have answered their purpose as well.
SOUTHRON.
What in the world are the men doing ? do you
call this driving deer? the men are going from
them. I do not know how you measure distance
in such a country as this, but I should say the men
are a mile off the deer the deer can neither see
nor hear them you are joking when you say they
can smell them.
FORESTER.
The deer must not see them : the men are now
* Sometimes called crockets.
DEER STALKING. 37
manoeuvring to give them their wind, without being
seen : on their doing so at the right place and time,
the chance of our getting a shot depends. No
quadruped has so acute a sense of smell as a deer.
I will back him against a blood- hound. I have
heard of a tame deer that was in the habit of going
with a shepherd to the hills : whenever it happened
that he went without it, the deer would trace him
step by step, though he had five or six hours start
of it. Observe how the glens converge to a point
about half a mile beyond the deer a false move-
ment there will be fatal none but experienced for-
esters can tell which way the currents pass there
the sentinel hinds on the left, prick their ears to
listen, and raise their noses to catch the taint in the
air they suspect danger the men have given
them their wind at the wrong point and now the
whole herd are off, they have taken to the plain
where they are safe. We must commence another
cast.
SOUTHRON.
Not for all the deer in the forest. How many
miles have we walked, trotted, run, crawled, and
swum already ? and how high, as the geographers
express it, have we been above the level of the sea ?
However, this is glorious sport ! the very possi-
bility of obtaining a shot is enough. We will re-
sume to-morrow.
In this manner, or with a miss, or the death of
38 SHOOTING.
a hind killed by mistake, the day often terminates ;
but frequent failures tend only to heighten the
pleasure of ultimate success.
We do not know whether an apology is due for
the warmth, flashiness, or flippancy, we so fre-
quently affect ; certain it is, sportsmen do not
speak of their doings as if reading a church-homily;
therefore, we think it would be out of place here to
write in that key-note. Right or wrong, we will
go on as we have begun, endeavouring to keep our
readers in humour, because it is good for their
health ; and, moreover, we take credit for being
marvellously good-humoured ourself, when not put
out of the way. We must now attempt a brief
description of wild-deer and deer-forests, and then
conclude the chapter with some of the events of a
successful stalk.
The red-deer or stag, is found chiefly in the un-
cultivated mountainous districts of Scotland and
Ireland. The greater part of his body is a dark
red-brown colour. He is a much more noble ani-
mal in appearance than the calf-like fallow-deer.
His height, when erect, is seven or eight feet from
the ground to the tip of his horns. To destroy
the deer of an adversary was once a mode of an-
noyance. Chevy Chase, it would seem, from the
opening stanzas of the famous ballad of that name,
was an expedition of this description :
To drive the Deer with Hound and Horn,
Earl Piercy took his Way ;
The Child may rue that was unborn,
The Hunting of that Day.
DEER STALKING. ?39
The stout Earl of Northumberland,
A Vow to God did make,
His Pleasure in the Scottish Woods,
Three Summer's Days to take.
With fifteen Hundred Bowmen bold,
All chosen Men of Might,
Who knew full well in time of Need,
To ami their Shafts aright.
The Hounds ran swiftly through the Woods,
The nimble Deer to take,
And with their cries the Hills and Dales
An Echo shrill did make.
The pursuit of deer with the rifle is termed deer-
stalking. To kill the semi-domesticated fallow-
deer requires little skill beyond that possessed by
a good marksman. The skill of the deer-stalker,
in pursuit of red-deer, is not only dependant on a
good use of the rifle, but is shewn in his ability to
find and approach his game to do which success-
fully, requires the most unwearied perseverance.
Many of the Scottish forests, wherein the stalking
of deer in their wild state is practised, are of im-
mense extent. It is on such tracts of land as the
forests of Marr, Atholl, and Invercauld not in-
ferior to the smaller English counties in extent
that the red-deer is sought. The forest of Atholl
alone is said to be more than forty miles long, and
in one part eighteen broad, of which about 30,000
imperial acres are devoted to grouse, 50,000 partly
to grouse and partly to deer, and there are reserved
solely for deer-stalking 52,000 imperial acres. In
these vast solitudes if the longevity assigned to
deer by tradition be true the Highlander stalks
40 SHOOTING.
the identical harts which, a century ago, bore the
scars of the weapons of his ancestors. An old
Celtic rhyme which has been thus Englished, shews
the great age to w r hich the stag and the eagle are
supposed to arrive,
THRICE THE AGE OP A DOG IS THAT OF A HORSE J
THRICE THE AGE OF A HORSE IS THAT OF A MAN J
THRICE THE AGE OF A MAN IS THAT OF A DEER ;
THRICE THE AGE OF A DEER IS THAT OF AN EAGLE.
So far as regards eagles, these lines contain an
assertion which can neither be proved nor nega-
tived. That eagles live a very long time in a state
of captivity is notorious, but how much longer they
will live in a state of freedom is unknown. As
regards deer, there has long existed a custom, in
some of the Northern forests, of marking calves ;
and as the mark of each forester is known, it might
be supposed that the extreme age to which deer
arrive would ere this have been ascertained, but
such is not the fact. The concurrent testimony of
many traditions which bear the semblance of
truth, inasmuch as dates and names of persons and
places are given with much circumstantiality
assign to the stag an extreme longevity one hun-
dred, or one hundred and fifty years, and even
more but there is no one instance sufficiently well
authenticated in all particulars to be relied upon.
A stag in Richmond Park lived in a half-domesti-
cated state twenty years : and we believe that
there has not hitherto been any well-established
case of greater longevity made public ; and, conse-
quently, that the age to which a stag will live has
DEER STALKING. 41
never been satisfactorily proved. This is not our
opinion alone, but that of those long conversant
with the habits of deer.
Mr. John Crerar, who was head forest-keeper at
Blair -Atholl nearly sixty years, and whose father
had likewise the charge of Atholl Forest for a long-
time before him, remembered that in the third
Duke of AtholFs time, a number of red-deer being
in a park at one of his Graced seats, (Atholl
House,) his father, being then keeper, was ordered
by the Duke to shoot the whole of those deer, ex-
cept three of the oldest harts and three hinds,
which were to be kept. When the late Duke came
into possession of the estate on his father's death,
one of those harts was fifteen years old, and was
alive, to Mr. John Crerar's knowledge, fourteen
years after, at which time a deer-hound unluckily
got into the park, and chased this hart to a pond
frozen over, when the ice broke, and the hart was
drowned. This harfs age, then, must have been
nearly thirty years, and it might perhaps have
lived many years longer had it not met with the
accident. Deer, like hares, in extreme old age be-
come grey, if not white ; but it remains to be
proved at what age that change takes place in deer,
and how long they live after it has taken place.
We have reason to believe that the hart in question
had not assumed that appearance ; but the death
of Mr. Crerar, which occurred while these sheets
were going through the press, has perhaps pre-
cluded its ever being known. Nor is it known
what became of the other five deer. Had the
42 SHOOTING.
drowned hart been grey or white, it would have
been a matter of notoriety.*
It is probable that, before the introduction of the
rifle, a great number of hinds and young harts were
destroyed in proportion to the number of adult
harts killed ; and that then there would occasionally
be met with harts grey and toothless, and exhibit-
ing other symptoms of old age, which might natu-
rally give rise to the opinion of the extreme longe-
vity of deer. But now the rifleman selects his
victim, and the finest harts fall before him : it is
therefore scarcely possible for harts now to attain
even twenty years, whatever may be the natural
term of their existence.
Besides that fewer hinds are shot, the full grown
ones are not so conspicuous in the herd as the
antlered harts, consequently they enjoy a compar-
ative immunity from the leaden death. Hinds
bearing every symptom of extreme age are occa-
sionally found in the Scottish forests. In November
1837, a hind was shot whose head and breast were
nearly white, and the rest of her body a mixed
brown and grey ; most of her teeth were decayed,
* Mr. John Crerar, the veteran forester, upon whose authority the
account of this deer rests, for nearly three quarters of a century was
the constant companion on the hills of the many illustrious indivi-
duals who essayed their skill in deer-stalking, or witnessed the drives,
in the Forest of Atholl. His father served the three first Dukes of
Atholl, and had the honour of attending the chivalrous Prince Charlie
on a grouse-shooting excursion, on his march to the Lowlands in 1745.
Mr. John Crerar succeeded his father as forest-keeper in 1776. On
his attaining his 90th year, he was presented with a silver quaich by
the Members of the Curling Club at Dunkeld, in token of their ad-
miration of the skill and ardour he had displayed in all manly games.
He died on the 1st March 1840, in his 91st year.
DEER STALKING. 43
and she was lame and poor. Another was killed
in the same year without a single tooth, and which
appeared, from the state of the gums, to have been
toothless some time. The venison of each was as
tough as Indian-rubber.
The mouth affords no criterion of the age of deer,
except that the want of teeth implies extreme age.
Nor do the horns or slot afford any after the sixth
year. Some harts grow darker coloured, others
not, after the sixth year.
The question of the red deer's age is a subject of
sufficient interest to sportsmen to warrant this di-
gression from our subject. We are, however, little
wiser than when we set out on the inquiry. Our
knowledge amounts to this, that numerous tra-
ditions assign an extreme longevity to the stag ;
naturalists, judging of red deer by the period of
gestation, and the time at which they arrive at
maturity, as compared with other viviparous ani-
mals, rank them amongst those which do not attain
a great age ; a stag has been known to live twenty
years, another thirty ; but how soon after the latter
period they become grey or white, remains to be
proved ; as also, how long they will live after hav-
ing grown grey or white. Nor is it certain that
whiteness is altogether the result of age though
we entertain little doubt on that point and not of
accident. That it should be caused by a wound, or
hurt, or disease, is not more improbable than that
a body-wound will affect the growth and shape of
the horn on the same side as the wound a fact
that has been often noticed, and of which there is
no doubt.
44 SHOOTING.
In the rutting season which commences in Sep-
tember the harts become fierce and bold, and it is
said they will even attack men ; but accidents from
them are very rare, though certain it is they are
held in dread at this season. They fight furiously
with each other, and bellow like bulls till the moun-
tains echo again. They are at this season covered
with earth from rolling in their soiling pools soft
peat moss, and by their dark appearance it is known
when they are no longer fit to be killed.
When the harts go out of season, yeld (barren)
hinds come in. Hinds are much more' numerous
than harts, but are more difficult to be approached,
except when they have calves, when they are not
fit to be shot. The period of gestation of the hind
is eight or nine months. They generally drop their
calves in June or July. They have occasionally
two at a birth, but that is seldom occurring not
so often as with the cow. Harts shed their horns
annually.
Red deer usually move up wind ; their acute
sense of smell thus giving them notice of danger.
It is by taking advantage of the wind that the deer-
stalker's success in a great measure depends. In a
mountainous country they can be driven in any re-
quired direction by skilful foresters. On wide plains
red deer are inaccessible.
The deer-stalker's dogs, which are always held
in leash until a wounded animal is detached from
the herd, should, so far as practicable, combine the
nose of the blood-hound with the speed of the grey-
hound, and run mute.
The deer-stalker has recourse to a thousand
DEER STALKING. 45
manoeuvres to approach a herd or solitary stag.
The animals are usually descried at a long distance,
either by the naked eye, or by the aid of an achro-
matic telescope, and the mode of approaching them
entirely depends upon the situation in which they
are discovered. Should it seem impracticable to
steal upon them while at rest, the stalkers, armed
with rifles, wait in the defiles through which the
deer are expected to pass, whilst the attendants
make a circuitous movement to get beyond the deer
and drive them in the direction required. The
deer-stalker, besides being an excellent shot, should
have good judgment of ground and a hardy frame,
combined with the patience and power to undergo
extreme fatigue and privation.
When the red deer is fired at, he is usually at a
considerable distance, and perhaps bounding away
at full speed. Behind the shoulder, therefore, is
the favourite mark. " In killing deer,"* says Mr.
Maxwell, " it is necessary to select the head, or
aim directly behind the shoulder. A body-wound
may eventually destroy the animal, but the chances
are that he will carry off the ball." Mr. Scrope,-f-
whose experience and success in deer-stalking render
his remarks valuable, says, " the most perfect shots
and celebrated sportsmen never succeed in killing
deer without practice ; indeed, at first, they are
quite sure to miss the fairest running shots. This
arises, I think, from their firing at distances to
which they have been wholly unaccustomed, and
* Wild Sports in the West, by W. H. Maxwell, Esq. London, 1833.
f The Art of Deer- Stalking, by William Scrope, Esq., F.L.S.
London, 1839.
46 SHOOTING.
is no reflection upon their skill. It is seldom that
you fire at a less distance than a hundred yards,
and this is as near as you would wish to get. The
usual range will be between this and two hundred
yards, beyond which, as a general rule, I never
think it prudent to fire, lest I should hit the wrong
animal, though deer may be killed at a much
greater distance. Now the sportsman who has
been accustomed to shot guns, is apt to fire with
the same sort of aim that he takes at a grouse or
any other common game ; thus he invariably fires
behind the quarry ; for he does not consider that
the ball, having three, four, or perhaps five times
the distance to travel that his shot has, will not
arrive at its destination nearly so soon ; conse-
quently, in a cross shot he must keep his rifle more
in advance. The exact degree, as he well knows,
will depend upon the pace and remoteness of the
object. Deer go much faster than they appear to
do, and their pace is not uniform, like the flying of
a bird ; but they pitch in running, and this pitch
must be calculated upon."
Although the red deer has not
The dreadful plunge of the concealed tiger ;
nor charges he like the maimed lion, or elephant,
or buffalo at bay : he possesses qualities which
render his death as difficult to achieve as that of
any of the foregoing quadrupeds; since to the
gracefulness of an antelope, he unites the agility
of a chamois the eye of a lynx the nose of a
vulture the ear of a hare the vigilance of a
bustard the cunning of a fox he can swim like
DEER STALKING. 47
a sea- fowl in speed he will outstrip the race-
horse and in the height and length of his leap
" none but himself can be his parallel !" The
anxiety attending this sport must be as intense
as the pursuit is laborious. After climbing for
hours the mountain-side, with the torrent thunder-
ing down the granite crags above him, and fearful
chasms yawning beneath him,* the stalker, with his
glass, at length descries in some remote valley, a
herd too distant for the naked eye. He now de-
scends into the tremendous glen beneath, fords the
stream, wades the morass, and by a circuitous route
threads the most intricate ravines to avoid giving
the deer the wind. Having arrived near the brow
of the hill, on the other side of which he believes
them to be, he approaches on hands and knees, or
rather vernacularly, and his attendant, with a spare
rifle, does the same. A moment of painful sus-
pense ensues. He may be within shot of the herd,
or they may be many miles distant, for he has not
had a glimpse of them since he first discovered them
an hour ago. His videttes on the distant hills
have hitherto telegraphed no signal of his proximity
to deer ; but now a white handkerchief is raised,
the meaning of which cannot be mistaken ; with
redoubled caution he crawls breathlessly along till
the antlers appear ; another moment and he has a
view of the herd ; they are within distance. He
selects a hart with well-tipt, wide-spreading horns.
Still on the ground, and resting his rifle on the
* An idea of the height and steepness of some of the forest-moun-
tains may be formed by the fact, that from a dozen to twenty deer
are sometimes destroyed at once by the fall of an avalanche, in winter.
48 SHOOTING.
heather, he takes a cool aim. His victim shot
through the heart leaps in the air and dies. The
rest of the herd bound away ; a ball from another
barrel follows, the " smack" is distinctly heard, and
the glass tells that another noble hart must fall,
for the herd have paused, and the hinds are licking
his wound. They again seek safety in flight, but
their companion cannot keep pace with them. He
has changed his course ; the dogs are slipped and
put upon the scent, and are out of sight in a mo-
ment. The stalker follows ; he again climbs a
considerable way up the heights ; he applies the
telescope, but nothing of life can he behold, except
his few followers on the knolls around him. With
his ear to the ground he listens, and amidst the
roar of innumerable torrents, faintly hears the dogs
baying the quarry, but sees them not ; he moves on
from hill to hill towards the sound, and eventually
another shot makes the hart his own. The deer
are then bled and gralloched, and partially covered
with peat; the horns are left upright, and a hand-
kerchief is tied to them to mark the spot, that the
hill-men may find them at the close of the day.
Let the reader imagine how much the interest of
all this is enhanced by the majestic scenery of an
immense, trackless, treeless forest to which do-
mesticated life is a stranger where mountain,
corrie, cairn, and glen, thrown promiscuously to-
gether, present the grandest of savage landscapes,
and as the field of wild adventure, cast into shade
what Mr. Scrope not unaptly designates " the tame
and hedge-bound country of the South."
ROE-DEER SHOOTING.
49
ROE-DEER SHOOTING.
Roe-deer shooting is conducted similarly to hare
shooting in covert. While the covers are beaten,
the shooters, placed at certain points, fire at the
roes as they dash past them, with large buck shot.
They are mostly seen in pairs, or bevies of five,
six, or seven.
The red-deer is sometimes unharboured in cover ;
but for the most part his lair is on the plain or
mountain-side ; his horns seem to unfit him for
making way through thickets. The roe beds in
the woods ; it is essentially the deer of the woods,
being seldom found so much as three miles from
cover. It does much mischief to young trees, and
the labours of the agriculturist. When discovered
in growing corn, it is usually shot with a rifle. In
-cultivated districts interspersed with wood and
rock the roe abounds, and it is looked upon by
E
50 SHOOTING.
the farmer as a greater nuisance than the rabbit is
in the South.
The roe-buck has in general three points to each
horn, sometimes four or even more, and sometimes
only one.
In August, the buck chases the doe, for the pur-
pose, as is supposed, of making her give up suck-
ling her kids ; and so determined are the bucks on
their object, that they will chase a doe for several
hours without intermission round some favourite
" knowe." The bucks become so worn by this ex-
ercise, that even poachers do not then think them
worth shooting.
Roe-deer commence rutting (or tourning) the
end of November, and give birth to their kids from
the middle of May to the middle of June. They
have sometimes only one, sometimes three, but
generally two at a birth.
These graceful but diminutive creatures are much
more difficult of domestication than the red-deer,
and instances of their being tamed are fewer. We
have heard of one living in a domestic state several
years, during which it was often allowed its freedom
in the woods, from whence it would always return.
THE FOWLING-PIECE.
Before making choice of a gun, the sportman
should determine what weight he can conveniently
carry. The heaviest gun, as regards shooting, will
be most effective ; but he should recollect, that un-
less he be a very robust person, a light gun will, on
THE FOWLING-PIECE. . 51
the whole, bring him as much game, since a few
additional pounds make a deal of difference in the
distance the person travelling can carry it with
ease; and few persons can shoot well when fatigued.
In the treatise on Shooting in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, of which these pages are an amplifica-
tion, we ventured to recommend short light guns,
and very large shot. In advocating the former,
we had chiefly in view the comfort and convenience
of the sportsman, who, by adopting large shot,
might dispense with that weight of barrel, which is
absolutely essential to shooting small shot effec-
tively. Short light guns may do very well when
birds are tame, the weather hot, and the sportsman
indolent or unwell for in the early part of the
season nine-tenths of the game bagged falls within
thirty yards of the gun ; and, again, if long shots
are expected, a cartridge in the second barrel of a
short gun, will not ill supply that power of killing
at long distances, which long barrels possess. A
shot flying through the air, moves with certain
degrees of velocity and momentum. A light
wooden ball will roll faster down a hill, than a
heavy piece of metal not quite globular: the wooden
ball has the greater velocity, the metal the more
momentum. The velocity with which a shot
moves, is given it by the projectile force of the
powder, aided materially by the weight of the
barrel. The momentum is derived chiefly from
the weight of the object moving. If mixed shot be
fired from a gun, each pellet may have nearly the
same velocity, but the largest pellet will have the
OZ SHOOTING.
greatest momentum, and will consequently strike
the hardest blow at a long distance, even when
it is drooping. Small shot flies like dust be-
fore it reaches the ground. As far as practicable
the sporting charge should combine a considerable
degree of velocity, (which can only be obtained by
using as much or more powder, in measure, than
shot,) with much momentum, (which can only
be obtained by using large shot, and not even then
in a great degree, if the gun is overweighted with
shot in comparison with the charge of powder,)
and there should be a sufficient number of pellets
to garnish a target well. These three requisites
cannot be combined to their full extent in a sport-
ing gun, as it would require one 10 or 11 Ibs.
weight to throw such a charge of large shot as
would garnish well, with a proportionate quantity
of powder. As a light gun will not bear a suffici-
ent charge of powder to impel small shot with the
requisite force, the most that it can be made to do
is, to charge it lightly with powder, and rather
heavily with large shot ; and the effect is, that the
whole body of the charge is thrown slowly, but the
weight of each pellet, in some measure, compensates
for the want of velocity. A rap from a spent ball
is no joke.
But short light barrels cannot for an instant
compete with long heavy ones, either for accuracy
of aim, or for doing execution at a considerable dis-
tance ; therefore, whoever can well manage a long
heavy gun throughout the day without fatigue,
will find his account in it. If, then, the sportsman
THE FOWLING-PIECE. 53
feels no inconvenience from carrying a 9 Ib. gun,
by all means let him adopt it. He may then shoot
small shot well. The weight of the barrel is the
fulcrum ; the powder of which, of course, is used
an extra quantity is the lever; and, with these
powers, a heavy gun gives the same impetus to
a small pellet, as a light gun does to a large
pellet. The advantage of a heavy gun is, that,
without increasing the weight of the charge of
shot, but merely by using smaller sized pellets,
a much greater number of projectiles is thrown
at each discharge, " there's multiplication going
on," the shots cover the target with indenta-
tions, close and clustering as the stars in the milky
way. With a 9 Ib. gun, the shooter will kill par-
tridges (we say nothing of grouse or pheasants,)
best with No. 7 shot, provided he does not fire
beyond forty yards. (A 9 Ib. gun, charged with
1 oz. of No. 6 shot, is a very powerful gun.)
Thus we find that the use of a moderate quantity
of small shot renders a heavy gun a more efficient
weapon than a light one, let the light one be
charged in any manner howsoever.
Guns for grouse-shooting, if bored perfectly
cylindrical, which, perhaps, is best, should never
be shorter in the barrel, in proportion to the bore,
than as follows. An 18 gauge gun should be 32
inches long; a 16 gauge, 34 inches;* a 14 gauge.
37 inches.
* Taking into consideration how requisite it is to be able to kill at
a long distance, and, on the other hand, the heat of the weather, and
toil of the pursuit, we think this gun, made to weigh 8 Ibs., a de-
54 SHOOTING.
In the choice of shot, a graduated scale in an
inverse ratio to the weight of the gun, should be
adopted. The heavier the gun, the smaller should
be the shot. For instance, a 6 Ib. gun may be
made to shoot No. 2 shot more efficiently than any
other size ; a 7 Ib. gun, No. 3 ; an 8 Ib. gun, No.
4 ; an 8^ Ib. gun, No. 5 ; a 9 Ib. gun, No. 6 ; a
10 Ib. gun, No. 7. Assuming that each of these
guns was of 14 or 16 gauge, and a pigeon match
was to be shot off with them at 21 yards rise,
should you be far wrong in adopting this scale ?
To explain more minutely the distinction be-
tween charging heavy and light guns, we give two
examples. 1st gun, 8^ Ibs. ; charge, powder, 3
drams, or as much as the shoulder will bear, with
11 oz. of No. 5 shot ; a thick tight wadding on
the powder, and a thin notched or perforated
wadding on the shot. 2d gun, 7 Ibs.; charge,
powder, 2 drams, with If oz. of No. 3 shot, and
slight wadding over each. The former of these
charges will, with little variation, suit any gun
between 8 and 9 Ibs. ; the latter, any gun be-
tween 6 and 8 Ibs.
The reasons for charging these guns so differ-
ently, may be stated thus : the small gun is too
light to admit of a charge of powder and strong
wadding sufficient to throw small shot with effect ;
therefore, when we have a light barrel, we must
use large shot, we must trust to the momentum
sirable size for grouse-shooting. Charge : Powder, 3 drams ; shot,
1| oz. No. 5 ; or if birds are wild, a No. 3 or 4 cartridge, with only 2
drams of powder in the reserve barrel.
THE FOWLING-PIECE. 55
of each individual pellet, rather than to the projectile
force contained in the powder, and, by using a small
charge of powder, keep the shot, which would otherwise
fly wide, well together. This we think the best
mode of charging a light gun ; there are, however,
these objections ; the shot, though sent with con-
siderable force, flies slowly, and droops a little
below the line of aim, which requires that the gun
should be elevated purposely for this mode of charg-
ing, or that the shooter should aim well forward.
On the contrary, when we use the heavy gun, we
must trust to the projectile force of a well wadded
charge of powder, and to the aid to be derived from
the weight of the barrel, rather than to the momentum
of large grains of shot. Under this system, we
must reduce the weight of the whole charge of shot
to the lowest practicable limit, that each pellet
may receive the greater impulse from the powder.
The shot must be small or there will be too few in
number to garnish well, and yet each pellet should
be of sufficient weight to strike effectively for a
charge that will send two shots through an object,
is preferable to one that will send four only half
through. No. 5 seems to combine these advan-
tages in a greater degree than any other. It is
the largest size that from the average of long guns
will garnish well ; and each pellet is one-third
heavier than a No. 7.
Regarding the choice of shot, there are two
classes of shooters ; the first pertinaciously adhere
to Nos. 2, 3, or 4, as we did while we preferred
light guns ; and by these we may be told we are
56 SHOOTING.
trifling with them by recommending shot as small
as No. 5 ; but let them understand we attach these
conditions to the use of it the guns must be up-
wards of 8 Ibs. and very long in the barrel, and the
shot must not exceed the powder in measure. The
next class, following a high authority, charge any
small gun with No. 7. An ounce and a half of
No. 7 shot, of course, dots the target well ; but is
each pellet driven with an available force beyond a
very moderate distance, unless fired from a gun
weighing 10 Ibs. or upwards? We think not.
As an argument in favour of No. 5 in preference
to smaller shot, we may adduce the following illus-
tration, which was originally intended to account
for our predilection for large shot in small guns.
The structure of a bird or quadruped, not protected
by feathers or fur and we contend that game is
very slightly so protected as against shot may be
compared with that of a ship. A large ball, mov-
ing with only half the velocity of a small one, will
produce more than double the effect ; the larger,
but slowly-flying ball, will split a much thicker
mast or beam, and do more damage to the frame-
work of a ship than the small one.
Another advantage arising from the use of
large shot should not be overlooked. In order
to kill in good style at thirty-five yards or
upwards, with small shot, the aim must be such,
that the bird fired at be near the centre of the
charge as thrown ; for if the bird be near the
outer circle of the charge, it is ten to one that it
is only slightly wounded ; but if near the outer
THE FOWLING-PIECE. 57
circle of a charge of large shot, it is ten to one that
it is brought down, for it must not be lost sight of,
that when large shot is used, a single pellet will
mostly be sufficient to bring a bird down. There
is a stunning effect produced by large shot, which
throws the bird off its balance at once. Small shot
has not the same immediate effect. Hares, rabbits,
grouse, pheasants, and full-grown partridges, will
carry it off, though they fall within a hundred
yards. It is very seldom, indeed, that a bird
towers after being fired at with large shot.
The term friction implies a gradual contraction
of the barrel towards the muzzle, which retards the
progress of the shot, that more time may be allowed
to the powder to burn. Relief accelerates the pro-
gress of shot through the barrels. What is the
proper degree of relief or friction for different de-
scriptions of barrels, is a subject fruitful of contro-
versy ; as is also the form of the breech. The best
breech is that which will cause the greatest quan-
tity of powder to consume in the barrel, and give
the least recoil. The percussion system of firing
has simplified the boring of guns. We think that
short barrels intended to be fired by 'percussion,
should be bored perfect cylinders, and the breech
should be conical or nearly so, and capable of hold-
ing a little more than half a charge of powder.
Long barrels should be bored true cylinders through-
out the greater part of their length, a little relief
being allowed near the muzzle.
A barrel, which recoils from being light, or from
not being held firmly when fired, throws shot very
58 SHOOTING.
weakly. So, on the other hand, barrels which have
sufficient weight to break the recoil, or which are
placed against something solid when fired, have
their shooting power amazingly increased. The
reason is, that when the gun is allowed to recoil, a
portion of that power which should be employed in
expelling the shot is uselessly expended on an
yielding surface in a contrary direction ; whereas,
when the barrel is firmly fixed, or is of sufficient
weight to break the recoil, that portion of the ex-
plosive force which strikes against the breech re-
bounds and is forced back upon the shot, and con-
sequently becomes a portion of the available strength
of the charge. This explains why the weight of the
gun rather than a difference in length or bore re-
gulates the shooting power. In what follows, Mr.
Greener,* whose book contains a lucid exposition
of the nature of projectile force, shows this more
clearly :
" The fact that the shooting powers of a gun are
increased by its being fixed in an immoveable frame,
is proved with the practice of mortars. Mortars
on iron beds, and these firmly embedded in the
earth, will throw a shell farther when on the
ground than when placed on a platform, or on
board a ship. It is for the purpose of destroying
the recoil, that mortars for sea service, though of
the same calibre as those intended for land-service,
are made three times the weight. Dr. Hutton
states, that he found no advantage by retarding
* The Gun, by William Greener. London, 1835.
THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM. 59
the recoil in practice with artillery. He means,
that no advantage is gained by stopping at three
feet a gun accustomed to recoil to the distance of
six. The statement is perfectly true. If he were
to allow a gun to recoil only an inch, and then
strike against a solid substance, he would gain
nothing. For if it recoil ever so little, the shoot-
ing force is as much weakened as if it recoiled twice
as far.
" To increase that force, a steady fixed resist-
ance is required. The velocity of the projectile
depends on the force of the immediate impulse.
Before a gun, suffered to recoil, could rebound from
striking some solid substance in its recoil, the
charge would be gone, and could, therefore, receive
no additional impetus from that rebound. The
truth of this fact may be illustrated by throwing a
hand-ball against any loose body with sufficient
force to displace it. However hard or elastic that
body might be, the ball would not rebound from it,
but would fall perpendicularly down. Fix and
secure that same body, and then the ball will re-
bound with little less force than that with which it
was thrown against it. So it is with gunpowder.
If it meet with a firm resistance, it will rebound
and project the ball or shot with additional force."
THE LOCK THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM TRIGGERS
WADDING AMMUNITION, &C.
The flint-and-steel lock, like the matchlock, has
had its day ; and the one is as likely as the other
to supersede the detonator. There were some
60 SHOOTING.
sportsmen who long retained the flint in preference
to the copper-cap. Their partiality for the old
system arose from their inability to depart from
the manner of taking aim to which they had been
accustomed they fired too forward ! It was said,
too, that a barrel fired by a detonating lock, did
not throw shot so efficiently as the other. That
objection is now obviated by making barrels per-
fectly cylindrical throughout the whole length of
the tube. We prefer the copper-cap-lock for its
simplicity, to any other system of firing by per-
cussion.
A bad lock, in these march-of-improvement days,
is rarely fixed to a gun. Since the use of detona-
tors has become general, the quality of the lock is
not of so much consequence to the sportsman as it
was previously. The quickness of firing with the
old flint and steel-locks depended so much on the
workmanship of the lock, that a properly-tempered
and well-filed one was invaluable. The introduc-
tion of detonators has by no means improved the
quality of the workmanship of the lock it has
rather deteriorated it. The fact is, the master
gunmakers, finding the lock not so much looked at
as formerly, are become indifferent to obtaining
the assistance, or unwilling to incur the expense of
first-rate workmen. The hardening and filing of a
lock in an artist-like manner, requires no common
skill. The best locks ever turned out were those
made on the flint and steel principle, at the time
when detonators first came into vogue ; the smart-
ness with which the percussion locks fired, obliged
THE LOCK. 61
the makers of the flint and steel-locks to bestow
double diligence and labour on their work, conscious
that a rival was in the field with whom it required
no ordinary pains to compete. Flint-locks, whether
as applied to the fowling-piece or the musket, will
soon be forgotten, or remembered only to give a
romantic interest to some tale of other times, as
the arbalest and long bow serve only to remind us
of our Norman and Saxon ancestors ! It requires
some mechanical knowledge, and some experience,
to decide on the merit of a lock. The vulgar me-
thod of trying one is this : The operator draws
back the hammer with his thumb, not touching the
trigger with his finger, and if the works in the in-
terior catch and snap smartly at the half-way, and
when the hammer is drawn back, he may rely on
the main-spring being sufficiently strong and free
to fire the caps : then, with his thumb still on the
hammer, he draws the trigger and lets the hammer
glide slowly down upon the pivot. With a little
practice he will be able, in some degree, to discri-
minate between a good lock and a bad one. To
prove the difference in quality, he should take up
a well-finished lock ; that is, one of hard material,
well filed, and having springs of a suitable and cor-
responding strength, and compare it with an infe-
rior lock ; by a nice touch he will perceive the
difference : the hammer of the former slides back-
wards and forwards with a smooth even force ;
whilst that of the latter runs rough and gritty, as
if clogged with sand. If this somewhat uncertain
mode of trial serve no other purpose, it will enable
62 SHOOTING.
the shooter, when he takes up a gun that has been
used since being cleaned, to discover whether the
lock is sufficiently free from rust and dirt as to be
fit for the day's service ; for most assuredly, if the
lock be clogged, when thus worked backwards and
forwards, it will not snap, or in sporting phrase
talk ; and in that case it would be unsafe to use it.
A detonating lock that will bear this trial, and will
invariably fire the cap, may be pronounced quite
good enough for any sporting purpose.
The triggers should be what are technically
termed box-triggers, and should be taken from the
stock and cleaned at least once during the season,
and oftener if very much exposed to dust, rain, or
a damp atmosphere. They should be adjusted
with scrupulous nicety, so as to require only a
slight touch to draw them : they should not, in-
deed, fire as easily as the hair-triggers of duelling
pistols, but should be fixed so firmly as that the
sportsman should not be liable to discharge his
piece, while bringing it up to his shoulder cocked,
with his finger upon one of the triggers. The
triggers may sometimes be regulated by filing,
hardening, or softening the scear spring, or filing
the wedge-like part of the scear which falls into the
notches of the tumbler : and sometimes it is neces-
sary to file that part of the trigger which comes in
contact with the scear, but this operation requires
to be carefully performed. A valuable lock should
not be placed in the hands of an unskilful work-
man for the apparently trifling purpose of regulat-
ing the triggers, nor yet for any other purpose.
THE COPPER-CAP. 63
The wadding we should recommend is that made
of felt, and anointed with some chemical prepara-
tion. We are not sure that this is the very best
description of wadding, but we know of none better.
New waddings are constantly invented. The me-
tallic wadding, concave wadding, punched cards,
or punched hat wadding, are any of them good, as
regards shooting. The chief reason why we bestow
a preference on the anointed wadding is, because
the barrel is^kept less foul, and may be fired so
many times oftener without requiring cleaning,
than when any other description of wadding with
which we are acquainted is used. We are not
partial to a tight wadding, but it should fit so
that when the barrel is clean and smoo th within,
the charge will not stir. There is little fear of
the charge stirring after a barrel has been fired a
few times, as the place where the leading or foulness
accumulates in greatest quantity is just above
where the charge of shot lies.
Considerable improvement has been made in
copper-caps since they were first introduced. The
composition in all of them is now good, that which
possesses the anti-corrosive principle is perhaps
best. There is much difference in the copper of
which they are made, but that is of little con-
sequence when good locks with concave or well
shielded hammers are used, otherwise those made
of bad copper are said to be dangerous. We
never heard of an accident from them. The
shooter should be particular in procuring copper-
caps of a proper size ; for if they do not fit the
64 SHOOTING.
pivots, considerable inconvenience will be experi-
enced. When too small, they will not explode ;
and when too large, the cap on the second pivot is
apt to fly off when the first barrel is fired. The
shooter will find it convenient to carry a quantity
of caps loose in his waistcoat pocket, with a reserve
in a box (a metal box water-tight is best) to have
recourse to should those in his pocket become wet.
He should take care that there be nothing in his
pocket to choke the caps ; and by way of precau-
tion, he should, before putting a cap on the pivot,
see that there be no dirt in the cap, and that it be
perfect.
The best powder does not soil the gun so much
as inferior powder. After using good powder, a
redness will be observed round the orifice of the
pivot. After using coarse powder, a> white or black
appearance will present itself. The purer the
powder is, the oftener may a barrel be fired with-
out requiring to be cleaned.
When the measure on the flask is regulated as
it ought to be, it will hold the requisite charge for
a clean barrel on a warm dry day. It behoves the
shooter, then, when the atmosphere is moist and
the wind boisterous, to increase the charge of pow-
der in each barrel in a trifling degree. However
stormy the day may be, the shooter may prevent
the particles of powder from being blown away
while he is charging ; but he cannot prevent them
adhering to the damp leaded interior of the barrels.
Indeed, if the barrels be damp, as they cannot fail
to be if the air be so, and there be no wind at all,
STRENGTH OF POWDER. 65
they cannot be held quite perpendicular, so that
the whole charge of powder shall find its way to
the breech. One-fifth of the charge will sometimes
adhere. Doubtless, when tight wadding is used,
the whole, or nearly the whole, of the charge finds
its way to the bottom : but in what state ? A por-
tion of it is wet ! and the result is, that, when
the .piece is discharged, only four-fifths ignite !
The fowling-piece should be put by clean, oiled,
and the barrels corked or stopped, and with the
hammers upon the pivots. It should be kept in a
cloth or wooden case, in a dry room, and, when not
in constant use, occasionally rubbed with linen
dipped in olive oil. The inside of the barrel should
be frequently oiled, the oil being immediately wiped
out with a dry cloth wrapped round the cleaning
rod. NeatVfoot oil is best for the locks, and
linseed oil is recommended for the stocks, but it
is so offensive that we prefer olive oil.
Large-grained powder is generally stronger than
small-grained. It is well to be cautious that the
grain is not so large as not to fill the nipple freely,
or misfires will be the consequence. Powder which
suits one gun may not suit another ; the larger the
bore of the gun, the larger should be the grain of
the powder. An instrument for trying the strength
of powder should not be trusted to : the best trial
is with the gun in which the powder is intended to
be used, and there can be no better target for try-
ing the comparative strength of different powders,
than an unbound book fixed firmly against some-
thing solid.
66
SHOOTING.
The heavier and harder the metal of which shot
is made the better.*
CHARGING THE FOWLING-PIECE.
It is not usual to charge the gun until arriving
at the shooting ground. When there, however
advisable on the score of caution it may be, flash-
ing off a quantity of powder to clear out, dry, and
warm the gun before loading, has certainly a Cock-
ney appearance ; the more sportsman-like practice
is, the party having reliance on the person who
cleans his gun, merely to permit the ramrod to
fall lightly to the bottom of each barrel. The
barrels are then held as perpendicularly as possible
while the powder is poured in, so that nearly the
whole charge may reach home, and not adhere in
its descent. The barrel is then tapped with the
ramrod, or the gun slightly shook against the foot,
that powder may find its way into the pivots,
this is the more necessary when coarse-grained
powder is used. A wadding is then gently pressed
down. The shot is next poured in, and a slight
shake of the gun in an upward direction causes it
to lie evenly ; a wadding is pressed upon it. The
* As shot is numbered differently by different manufacturers, we
give the number to the ounce of the sizes to which we have re-
ferred:
A. A. about
A.
B. B.
B.
1.
2.
3.
40
50
60
75
80
110
130
4. about
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
180
220
270
350
600
1000
1700
THE WIRE-CARTRIDGE. 67
shooter next removes the remains of the caps, and
looks whether the powder has found its way to the
orifice of the pivots, and if it has, he places fresh
caps on ; if powder is not visible at the orifice of
the pivots, he removes any obstacle with a pricker,
and contrives to push down a few grains of powder.
It is very material to attend to this point, to pre-
vent miss-fires.
THE WIRE-CARTRIDGE.
The wire-cartridge was invented in 1828 by Mr.
Jenour. It consists of a cylindrical case or net-
work of wire, the meshes of which are ,
somewhat more than an eighth of an
inch square ; at the lower end the wire
partially closes ; the wire case is then
enveloped in fine paper, and at the
upper end a cork wadding, cut so as to
fit the guage of the gun, is affixed,
the case is then filled with shot and
bone dust. The first cartridges made,
though ingenious in construction, were defective
in operation. It was a matter of no ordinary
difficulty to fabricate them in such a manner
that the shot should leave the case at the precise
distance required. This at first could not be
done so that they might be trusted in every in-
stance ; every alternate cartridge might fire well,
but the rest would fire irregularly, being liable to
ball, that is, the shot would not leave the case
until fifty or sixty yards from the gun, and such
68 SHOOTING.
cartridges were, of .course, not only useless but
dangerous. They have been from time to time
improved, and almost every difficulty has been
overcome. The sporting cartridges now made
never ball, they act with a considerable degree of
precision and certainty, and that they may be safely
trusted may be inferred from the fact that they
are often preferred by persons engaged in pigeon
matches. Various materials were used experimen-
tally to fill up the interstices between the pellets,
but nothing seems to answer so well as the material
now used. Another difficulty in their construction
presented itself. It was requisite to accommodate
them to the various methods of boring pursued by
different gunmakers, and the unequal length of
barrels, the object in view being to produce a car-
tridge that would suit all barrels of the same gauge,
and this has been in a great measure, if not wholly,
accomplished. The liability to ball which, not-
withstanding various improvements made in them,
was not effectually obviated for many years, during
which they were tried, and in many instances pre-
maturely condemned, either from real defects, or
from the parties not knowing how to use them.
They were not brought to perfection until the
year 1837.
The wire-cartridges possess two principal ad-
vantages over loose shot ; they are propelled with
greater velocity, and thrown more evenly. A loose
charge is always thrown in patches ; the shots of
a cartridge, as seen on a target, are comparatively
equi-distant from each other. There are four
THE WIRE-CARTRIDGE. 69
classes of wire-cartridges, which the patentees have
named the battue, the blue, the red, and the green ;
each intended for a different range. There is some
little difference in the construction of each of the
three kinds ; the meshes of the frame-work are
larger in the battue and the blue, than in the red,
and in the red than in the green, and there are
doubtless other differences not perceptible to the un-
initiated. The battue and the blue cartridges are
intended for general use ; the battue for the shortest
distance ; the blues will kill several yards further
than loose shot of the same size, and, of the four
kinds, are, in our opinion, decidedly to be pre-
ferred ; each blue cartridge being thrown more
nearly alike, they are more certain in their opera-
tion than the red and the green, which are in-
tended for longer distances. The red may be
serviceable in open places, when game is wild, and
the shooter is provided with a gun of not less than
fourteen gauge, or with a very short barrel, which
does not throw its shot very strongly. The green
cartridges are intended chiefly for wild-fowl shoot-
ing ; these should be used in barrels of not less
than twelve gauge. The red and green cartridges
retain the shot in the case longer than the others,
and are carried with an astonishing force to an in-
credible distance, and at the same time very closely.
The red may generally be trusted for long distances,
especially from barrels of large calibre ; but at
short distances the smallness of the circle they
describe renders them objectionable. The green
cartridges should never be used for shooting game.
70 SHOOTING.
The blue and battue only should be used in barrels
of small gauge.
The cartridge does not require either a greater
or less charge of powder than loose shot, but there
is this peculiarity attending it. A heavy charge
of powder throws the shot from the cartridge more
closely than a small charge, by reason of its allow-
ing more time for the escape of shot from the net-
work. This is exactly the reverse of the manner
in which the loose charge acts. The greater the
charge of powder when loose shot and wadding are
used, the more is the shot dispersed, and vice versa.
Either loose shot or cartridge shot is projected
with greater force and velocity when a heavy
charge of powder is used. When birds lie well,
we would recommend the shooter who adopts the
cartridge to charge lightly with powder, to give
the shots time to spread well ; but when birds are
wild, he should charge with as much powder as
the shoulder can conveniently bear, so as to give
the greatest possible force, and at the same time
the greatest practicable degree of closeness. It is at
long distances only that the superiority of the
cartridge is conspicuous.
Amongst the advantages attending the adoption
of the cartridge, it may be mentioned, that the re-
coil is not so severe, and consequently a lighter
gun may be used, than with the loose charge, and
this is a great relief to the shooter in a heavy
country, and especially on the hills in August,
when the heat of the sun is frequently overpower-
ing. The cartridges act well when fired from
THE WIRE-CARTRIDGE. 71
short barrels, perhaps more satisfactorily than
when fired from long ones. The increased facility
and expedition of loading is another advantage
which should not be overlooked.
The main objection to the cartridge, and it is a
material one to a person who is an indifferent
marksman, is, that it does not describe a sufficient
circle at short distances. When game is wild
the cartridge is invaluable for the reserve barrel of
a double gun.
The wire-cartridges usually kept on sale contain,
for the different gauges, the following weight of
shot.
Weight of
Calibre. Shot.
20 | OZ.
19 1
18 1
17 1
J6 14
15 li
Weight of
Calibre. Shot.
14 HOZ.
13 If
12 If
11 H
10 If
When ordering cartridges, it is necessary to give
the gauge of the barrel, the weight of the cartridge,
the size of the shot, and the kind^ that is, whether
battue, blue, red, or green.
The green cartridges, fired from a common-sized
fowling-piece, are not to be depended upon for any
distance nearer than fifty yards ; and, for that rea-
son, they should only be used for wild-fowl shooting,
for which sport they may answer very well when
fired from a reserve barrel. We would not recom-
mend their adoption, even for wild-fowl shooting,
72 SHOOTING.
to a person using a common-sized single gun, since
by so doing he would hazard missing when the most
favourable opportunities of killing presented them-
selves. A No. 3 red cartridge would suit better.
The wire cartridge has been proved to be much
superior to the loose charge for the stanchion, and
heavy shoulder-guns used on the sea-coast and
rivers. For the largest shoulder-guns, B or BB
loose shot, or a No. 1 cartridge is usually adopted.
A A loose shot, or a B or No. 1 cartridge will better
suit the stanchion-gun.
TAKING AIM.
When the dog points, or when birds rise near
to the shooter, he should immediately draw back
both hammers with the right thumb ;* but should
the birds rise at a considerable distance, to save
time, he need only cock one barrel, as in this case
he has only to fire once. He should never be in
haste. It is more prudent to let the bird escape
than to fire hastily. If on open ground, he should
not fire until the bird is more than twenty yards
distant. He should be deliberate in bringing up
the piece to his shoulder, and in making it to bear
on the object, but the moment he has brought it to
bear, the finger should act in co-operation with the
* Many experienced sportsmen disapprove of the practice of cock-
ing both barrels at the same time. They think that it ought to be a
rule never to cock either barrel, until the game be upon the wing,
then that the left barrel should be cocked and fired, and thereafter
taken from the shoulder. The right barrel should then be cocked
and fired if necessary ; if not discharged, it should be put back to the
half-cock, and the left re-loaded.
TAKING AIM.
73
eye, the eye being kept open the while, so that the
shooter may see whether the bird falls, or feathers
fall from it, for if he does not see it distinctly at
the moment of firing, there is something defective
in his system of taking aim.
The shooter, when learning, should never aim
directly at the body of a hare on foot, or of a bird
on the wing. This precaution is scarcely necessary
when the motion of the object is slow, but by habi-
tuating himself to it on all occasions, he will the
sooner become an adept. His mark should be the
head, the legs, or a wing, if within twenty yards.
When further off, he should make some allowance,
according to the distance and speed of the object
moving. His aim should be at the head of a bird
rising or crossing the legs of a bird flushed on an
eminence and moving downwards from him the
wing of a bird flying from him in an oblique direc-
tion. His aim should be at the head of a hare, in
whatever way she may be moving. The same
rules apply when the object is more than twenty
paces distant from the shooter, making allowance
for the speed. Thus, for a partridge crossing, the
allowance of aim before it with a detonator, at
twenty paces, will be one inch at thirty paces two
inches at fifty paces five inches at fifty-five paces
seven inches. Half this allowance will be proper
when the bird moves in an oblique direction. When
an object moves directly from the shooter, at more
than twenty paces distance, he should fire a little
above 'it. When a bird or hare approaches the
shooter directly, he should not aim at it until it
74 SHOOTING.
lias passed him, or has turned aside. The moment
it has altered its course the gun should be brought
up, and no time should be lost in firing.
It is not easy at all times to form a correct idea
of the distance of a bird from the gun. The nature
of the situation, and the state of the weather often
deceive the eye. Thus, on a bright day birds ap-
pear to be near, and on a dull day distant. It is
much easier to estimate the distance of a bird in
small in closures, where hedges or trees serve as
guides, than on open ground. The hedges, indeed,
tend to deceive the unpractised eye; the object is sup-
posed to be much further off, while on open ground
it is supposed to be nearer, than it really is. It
is often very difficult to determine whether a grouse
is within range ; and sometimes the mist increases
the difficulty, for then the bird is either scarcely
seen, or else magnified, by the sun's rays gleaming
through the mist, to an unnatural size. In general,
grouse are further off than they are supposed to be.
The shooter, however, has a peculiar sight : every
bird he brings down, in good style, is at sixty yards
distance. It is amusing sometimes to hear persons
talk, after they have been watched, of the distances
at which they have effected their shots ; they ever
think the game so much further off than it really
was. The sportsman who has not convinced him-
self by actual measurement, often seems to be la-
bouring under a species of hallucination when speak-
ing of his distances, and, if he bets on them, to a
certainty loses. Birds killed at fifteen paces are
thought to be at twenty-five, and those at twenty-
TAKING AIM.
75
five are estimated at thirty- five or forty, and so on
to the end of the story !
When a covey or brood rises, the shooter should
fix his eye on one bird, and shoot at that bird only.
He should not be diverted from it by other birds
rising nearer to him while he is bringing up his
gun, unless the bird he first set his eye upon be
decidedly out of all reasonable distance, so as to
render the chance of killing exceedingly remote.
By observing this rule, he is not only more certain
of bringing down his game, but he will more fre-
quently kill the old birds a desideratum, for two
reasons ; first, because he will, in all probability,
disperse the covey, which being done, any sports-
man may generally, without difficulty, bag a few
brace ; and secondly, because the old birds make a
better show in the game-bag.
We think that all shooters, except the veriest
bunglers, use a gun properly as regards throwing
the end of it upon the object aimed at, and drawing
the trigger, and that any inaccuracy of aim must
be attributed to the eye not being in the proper
place when the aim is taken.
The habit of missing arises not from inability to
throw the end of the gun upon the bird, but from
the eye not being directly behind the breech, which
it necessarily must be for good shooting.
If there were a sight at each end of the barrel,
it would be requisite, when taking aim, to keep
shifting the gun until both sights were in a line
between the eye and the mark ; that, however, with
a gun not well mounted to the eye and shoulder,
76 SHOOTING,
would be too complex an operation, for before it
could be performed, a swift bird would be out of
reach ; it follows, tben, that the shooter's attention
should be directed only to the sight at the top of
the barrel ; and the breech end should come up
mechanically to the proper level.
If the sportsman will take aim alternately at ob-
jects on his right, on his left, on the ground, and
in the air, without moving his body or taking his
gun from the shoulder, he will at once see the diffi-
culty of keeping his eye directly behind the breech.
To be a proficient in shooting, he must in some way
be able to do that mechanically ; for, when aiming
at a moving object, his attention can only be paid
to placing the end of the gun on that object. When
bringing up a gun to the shoulder in a gumnaker's
shop, it is easy to bend the head down to the exact
spot for looking along the sight-plate ; but it is
very different when shooting at birds on the wing.
The best way to prove whether a stock suits, or in
other words, whether the user of it can bring it up,
as it were mechanically and without an effort, to
the proper place, is to fire hastily, on a dark night,
at a lighted candle placed against a wall, at about
forty paces distance.
When a person is nervous, or afraid of the recoil,
he naturally raises his head, and consequently shoots
above the mark ; on firing, he unconsciously throws
his head back, and then seeing the bird above the
end of the gun, he fancies he shot under it, when
the reverse is the fact. We may also observe, that
if the shooter does not keep his head down to the
ROOK AND PIGEON SHOOTING, ETC. 77
stock, he will probably draw it aside, so that his
aim will be as if taken from one of the hammers,
which would, of course, throw the charge as much
on one side of the mark, as raising the head would
above it.
The main point, then, in taking aim, is to keep
the head down to the stock, and the eye low behind the
breech. The sportsman who, from habit or practice,
can invariably bring his eye down to the same place,
and keep it steadily there, so that he may always
take aim from the same starting-point, will distance
all competitors.
ROOK AND PIGEON SHOOTING, ETC,
The Rook. We commence our notice of the dif-
ferent kinds of shooting with the fowling-piece now
chiefly practised, with a few observations on those
birds, not coming under the denomination of game,
which occasionally afford the first lessons to the
younger brethren of the trigger, and which there-
fore may properly take precedence, in description of
the more difficult branches of the art.
Young rooks, in the month of May, are gener-
ally shot whilst sitting on the branches, near their
nests, on the tops of the loftiest trees, so that it
requires a steady aim, and hard-stricken shot to
bring them down with certainty. Very large shot
is best, for the momentum of it at once throws
the rook off its balance. Rooks wounded with
small shot will frequently cling to the bough with
their claws, and die suspended in that manner.
78 SHOOTING.
Rooks are gregarious, and feed on grain, worms,
and insects. It is only during the season of incu-
bation, and until the young ones can fly, that they
frequent the rookery, which is mostly a small plan-
tation, or clump of elm trees, and near to some habi-
tation. When rooks choose any particular cluster
of trees, or plantation to build in, the same trees
will, if standing, be tenanted again the next year by
the same rooks and their offspring, notwithstanding
they may have been much fired at, or in some other
way disturbed. This opinion is not universal. In
some counties there exists a prejudice against the
practice of firing at rooks with gunpowder, especi-
ally when the rooks are few, and the number of
trees limited, lest the rooks should desert the rook-
ery ; and, therefore, that as little alarm as possible
may be created, they are fired at with balls from
the air-gun, and sometimes the young shooter will
try his skill with the cross-bow.
After young rooks have been fired at several
times, some of the strongest and best-fledged will
quit the rookery, and alight on hedges or trees at
some distance, and during these short flights, they
afford good sport to the tyro learning to shoot
birds on the wing. A warm sunny day is best for
rook-shooting. In cold weather, particularly on
windy days, young rooks will not quit their nests.
The old rook is distinguished from the young of
the first year by the base of either mandible being
destitute of feathers, and the skin covered with a
whitish scurf ; the beak of the young rook is black
to the insertion. They are distinguished from
ROOK AND PIGEON SHOOTING, ETC. 79
other birds of a somewhat similar appearance, by a
slight variation of colour ; the rook has a blue, the
carrion-crow a brown tinge, the jackdaw is partially
grey, the raven is jet black.
The Wood-pigeon. The wood-pigeon is little re-
garded by the sportsman. A shot may be obtained
by lying in ambush early in the morning, near to
some wheat stubble, or field of newly sown grain,
where the birds feed ; but the best sport the wood-
pigeon affords is at the roosting place, where the
shooter ought to take his station an hour before
sunset. It is difficult to obtain a shot in any other
manner, except when the birds are young, when
they are sometimes killed in trees, in the same
manner as young rooks. The sportsman in pursuit
of game often sees them, but rarely obtains a shot
at them. Sometimes, but it is usually when he is
not aware of them, they will suffer him to approach
close to the tree in which they are perched. The
tree is generally a large one, and perhaps in full
foliage, and he hears the rustling of the wings of
the decamping birds, but seldom secures a shot.
Whenever a wood-pigeon leaves a tree, the shooter
should prepare for others, since, when there are
several in the same tree, they will not leave it
simultaneously, but move off in succession. They
are large strong birds, and require heavy shot to
bring them down.
Shooting tame pigeons is becoming a very com-
mon amusement ; but it is oftener practised to de-
cide a wager, than prove the skill of the parties.
The Red House at Battersea, near London, is the
80 SHOOTING.
scene of the principal matches. The birds are
sprung from a trap, which is usually placed twenty-
one yards from the gun ; the birds of each person
are provided by his opponent ; blue rocks are the
favourites ; very heavy guns are used, but the
weight of shot is usually limited. The birds must
fall within a stated distance from the trap, or they
are not counted amongst the successful shots.
The Lark, Field-fare, Lapwing, Golden-plover, and
Dottrel. Larks and field-fares are often the object
of the young shooter's pursuit. Field-fares, the
blue-backs and red-wings, arrive in October, and
remain during winter. They are easily approached
during a frost, or when the ground is covered with
snow. They will then be found in search of the
berries of the mountain-ash, the holly, and the
hawthorn, and are killed in great numbers. Like
wood-pigeons, field-fares do not leave a tree, or rise
from the ground simultaneously, so that when one
bird flies off, if the shooter will hasten to the spot,
he will, in all probability, meet with a lagger.
The lapwing or pewit is a bird much sought for
by the juvenile shooter. Lapwings are commonly
found on marshes, or wet land abounding in rushes.
Except during the season of incubation, they collect
in flocks, and are so very wary as to be difficult of
approach. They are often killed for the 'Sake of
their toppings, which are useful to the angler. As
they wing round the shooter, it is extremely diffi-
cult to decide whether they are within range or
not ; they should be within a moderate distance
when fired at, or they will escape in the interstices
ROOK AND PIGEON SHOOTING, ETC. 81
of the charge, as the size of the body .bears a small
proportion to the apparent size of the bird when
on the wing, it is not uncommon to see several
feathers cut out of the wings, and the bird fly away
as if unhurt.
All these birds afford amusement chiefly to school-
boys. The sportsman in pursuit of game does not
think them worthy attention ; but the golden or
whistling-plover, and the dottrel, which are birds
often met with in hilly districts, are generally con-
sidered as worth firing at, if they accidentally come
in the way, but are not worth the trouble of fol-
lowing.
The Land-rail. The land-rail or corn-crake is a
bird of passage. It may be found with pointers
or spaniels early in spring, in hedges or long grass.
The dogs for this sport should not be staunch, such
as will foot the birds are best, as it is with great
difficulty they can be made to rise. It is only
during the first fortnight after their arrival that,
they may be fairly killed in spring, after that
time they begin to pair. In August and Septem-
ber the sportsman sometimes casually meets with
a land-rail, while beating for other birds.
WILD DUCK SHOOTING.
Except- during a severe frost, wild ducks are
seldom met with in the inland counties any where
but on large pools and reservoirs, where they can
only be approached by having recourse to some
stratagem, as waiting in a shed on an island or the
82 SHOOTING.
bank of a pool, or by stalking behind a horse trained
to the purpose.
When the pools are frozen over, wild ducks are
found on rivers, wells, and brooks, or in shallow
drains and gutters wherein there are springs of
fresh water and plenty of water-weeds, amongst
which they can wade and feed. The flights being
broken, ducks are found singly or only few in num-
ber, and are consequently easy of access, and may
be shot with a common fowling-piece, the size of
shot not being less than No. 2. For this descrip-
tion of shooting, the gun should be well charged
with powder, and not over- weighted with shot.
Wild-fowl are so fortified with down on some parts
as to resist any but hard-stricken shot. Their
back is the most vulnerable part, and all kinds of
wild-fowl present it to the shooter as they rise.
They are also easily brought down when they pre-
sent a cross shot, but when approaching it is not
advisable to fire at them. As the shooter pur-
sues the course of a small winding river or brook,
he should move on as noiselessly as possible, keep-
ing, if practicable, at such distance from the bank
that he can command a view of the surface of the
water not more than twenty yards before him, or
else keep out of sight of the water, except at every
turn, when he should appear suddenly on the bank.
When there are hollow banks, and willows over-
hanging the water, the shooter may occasionally
make some noise and look carefully among the
willows, where a solitary duck will sometimes let
WILD FOWL SHOOTING. So
him pass her. A mallard is readily distinguishable,
but not always a duck, the latter being so near the
colour of the bank. If a dog accompany the shooter
it should follow at heel. The earlier in the morn-
ing the better for this sport, though in a mist dur-
ing a frost wild ducks will remain in the brooks
and gutters all day. The shooter should first
follow the course of the river to some distance, and
take the brooks and sedges afterwards.
The shooter often waits near a fresh water spring
for the coming of ducks, on the verge of night.
With his back to a tree or bank he is sufficiently
concealed. The ducks, before alighting, fly round
their feeding place several times, each time con-
tracting their circle, the shooter, therefore should
not be in haste, as a near shot is desirable at night ;
he should take care, however, to fire before the
bird is below the sky-line, or he will not see it dis-
tinctly enough to take a correct aim. If it be a
dark evening, he need only wait about a quarter
of an hour, the last quarter of an hour wherein
he can see to shoot ; but if moonlight, he may
wait an hour, during which time, and sometimes
even longer, ducks will be constantly winging past
him.
Ducks may be walked up on a moonlight night,
and killed when above the sky-line, as easily as
during day. The objection to night shooting is,
that birds are often lost.
There are several kinds of wild-fowl, such as the
water-hen, which will dive rather than fly away
when disturbed. They are, for the most part,
84 SHOOTING.
clumsy birds on the wing, and are killed without
difficulty when they can be made to rise. When
shot at swimming, the shooter should take aim and
fire instantaneously, or they will be under water
while he is drawing the trigger.
WILD-FOWL SHOOTING FROM A PUNT, WITH A LARGE
SHOULDER-GUN.
We quote the following from Colonel Hawker's
directions for shooting wild-fowl from a punt, with
a large shoulder-gun :
" In following wild- fowl, it is easier to get within
twenty yards of them by going to lee-ward, than
a hundred and fifty if directly to windward, so
very acute is their sense of smelling.
" The best time, therefore, to have sport with a
canoe and a shoulder-gun, (provided it be low water
or half ebb while you are hid in the creeks,) is in
clear, frosty, moonlight nights, when the wind
happens to blow towards you as you face the moon.
It is then impossible for the wild-fowl to smell you,
and you may, by getting them directly under the
light, have the most accurate outline of every bird,
and even distinctly see them walking about, at a
much greater distance than a gun would do execu-
tion. From thus being on the shining mud-banks,
they appear quite black, except some of the old
cock widgeons, on the wings of which the white is
often plainly to be seen.
" On arriving sufficiently near, should the water
be so low that you cannot present your gun at the
birds without kneeling or standing up, you must
WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 85
get aground at the side of the creek, or steady
your canoe by means of forcing each oar from
between the thowls into the mud, otherwise the
recoil of the gun will set her rocking, and thus
you might probably be tipped out. Having made
all fast, rise up and fire. Take care, however, to
rise high enough to be well clear of the mud, or
not a feather will you touch, and present as follows ;
by day or moonlight, if the birds are close,
directly at them, or, if beyond forty yards, shoot
at their heads, unless they are feeding in a con-
cave place, where the tide has left a kind of plash,
in which case you must level rather under them,
or you will only graze their back feathers. In
star-light take your aim just at the top of the nar-
row black line in which birds always appear to one
who is low down ; and when so dark that you cannot
see your gun, present, as you think, about a foot
over, or you will most likely shoot above a foot
under them.
" Should you have been successful, you will, if
at night, generally hear your cripples (wounded
fowl) beating on the mud before you can sufficiently
recover your eyes, from being dazzled by the fire,
to see them. Your man then puts on his mud-
boards," (which are flat square pieces of wood fas-
tened to the feet, to enable the party to walk or
wade through mud,) " taking the setting pole to
support him, and assist the dog in collecting the
killed and wounded; taking care to secure first
the outside birds, lest they should escape to a creek.
During this time you are left in charge of the
86 SHOOTING.
punt, and should, if possible, keep a look out, in
order to see if any more birds fall dead or wounded
from the company, before they have flown out of
sight.
"The gunner generally calculates on bringing
home the half only of what he shoots, from the
difficulty of catching the whole of his winged birds,
which he calls cripples, and those that (to use the
pigeon phrase,) fall out of bounds, which he calls
droppers. If the birds fly up he generally declines
firing, knowing that the moment they are on the
wing, they become so much more spread, that
he could seldom get more than three or four, for
which it would be hardly worth while to disturb
the mud, particularly as widgeon, by night, if not
fired at, will in cold weather probably settle again
at no great distance. " *
Mr. Greener, to whose work we have already
referred, says, " Never make duck guns (shoulder-
guns) above seven-eighths in the bore, if you wish
them to kill at a great distance, and not less than
fifteen or sixteen pounds weight, and full four feet
long."
WILD-FOWL SHOOTING FROM A PUNT, WITH A
STANCHION-GUN.
The most destructive method of pursuing wild-
fowl is that adopted by the coast gunners resident
in the vicinity of creeks and harbours, who kill the
* Instructions to Young Sportsmen. 8th edit. London, 1838.
WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 87
birds for sale. A gun of immense weight is fixed
upon a rest or frame or carriage, either in a flat-
bottomed canoe, or some other floating craft calcu-
lated to make way either in shallow water, or ooze,
or over sands. It may for once be fine amusement
to an amateur-shot to row about in quest of hoopers,
(wild swans,) geese, and widgeons, in a frosty
moonlight night, with an experienced craftsman
and Newfoundland dog, but a few blank nights in
succession have a remarkably cooling effect. Much
has been said of the luxury of a shower-bath, and
of its salutiferous properties, something has lately
been written on the young deer- stalker's emotions
when he first feels the mountain-burn enter at the
breast of his shirt. We, too, could be discursive
on the amateur-gunner's sensations when his New-
foundland Neptune shakes the superincumbent salt
fluid from his hide every time he returns to the
boat. Wishing them success, we leave the coast-
gunners to their trade ; our notions of sport do not
extend to rowing about, during a wintry night, in
a wet boat, with a swearing seaman and a damp
dog.
POINTERS AND SETTEES.
The dog seems to be endued with some instincts
for the exclusive service of man ; whereas the in-
stincts of all other animals are conducive to the
supply of their individual wants, and their useful-
ness to man is secondary thereto. It would be diffi-
cult to controvert the argument, that the pointer's
instinct was given for the purpose of aiding men
to capture or kill game, by means of such engines
88 SHOOTING.
as nets or guns. This, we are aware, may be a
doubtful position to maintain ; but who can say for
what other apparent purpose this peculiar faculty
was given? It may, indeed, be urged, that the
propensity to point, in the pointer, is a means
ordained by providence for his subsistence in a,
wild state, by enabling him to approach within
reach of his prey, and thus to accomplish, by
another species of stealth, what the tiger and other
animals of the cat tribe effect by ambuscade. Such
an argument, however, is presumptively rebutted
by the fact, that all existing races of wild dogs are
gregarious, and resort to the chase for food ; nor
is there any record of the existence of dogs in a
state of nature, except those calculated for the
chase. It is therefore gratuitous to assert, that
the instinct or faculty of pointing was bestowed
upon the pointer as a means of subsistence, since
he has ever been dependant on man for food.
It is strongly argued, that all dogs have de-
scended from one common stock, and that by diffe-
rence in food, climate, and training, they have be-
come what they are at present ; nor is it more im-
probable that such is the fact, than that the human
race are descended from one common parent ; for
dogs are not more dissimilar than the various
tribes of men, who differ not only in outward form,
but morally and intellectually, as much as dogs
vary in size, shape, temper, and sagacity. Those
animals which can be domesticated improve by ac-
quaintance with man, as the wild fruits by culti-
vation. All wild dogs have some qualities in
POINTERS AND SETTERS. 89
common ; but their instincts are somewhat limited
or not called forth. It is only in its domesticated
state that we find the various qualities which
render the dog so useful a servant to man. Wild
dogs are, in comparison with domesticated dogs,
what savages are to civilized society ; for where-
ever savages are found, they bear some resem-
blance to each other, and are engaged in similar
pursuits.
England is not less famous for its horses than
for its sporting dogs. Our grey-hounds, fox-
hounds, and harriers are unequalled, and that they
are so results from the care that has been taken
to keep each breed distinct. All our pointers are,
in some degree, of Spanish extraction ; and such
of them as have most Spanish blood in their veins
are unquestionably the best. The Spanish pointer
is about twenty-one inches in height. He has a
large head, is heavily made, broad-chested, stout-
limbed, with a large dew-lap ; his eyes are full,
and widely apart, and his nose is broad ; his tail
is straight, short and thick, and his ears large,
pendulous, and fine ; he should have a round-
balled and not a flat foot.* Notwithstanding, how-
* u The most essential point about the dog," says General Hanger,
" is a good foot ; for, without a good firm foot, he can never hunt
long. I never look at a dog which has a thin, flat, wide, and spread
foot." He relates the advice given him by a gamekeeper in Suffolk
for keeping the dog's foot in working condition. " As long as the
ground is dry and hard, I always wash my dog's feet with warm
soap and water, and clean them well, particularly between the toes
and balls of the feet ; this comforts his feet, allays the heat, and pro-
motes the circulation in the feet. In the more advanced period of
the season, when the ground is very wet, then salt and water may be
proper."
H
90 SHOOTING.
ever, the vaunted excellence of British pointers,
the generality of them are not such as they ought
to be. It is much to be lamented that the same
care is not taken in the breeding of pointers and
setters as of hounds. Scarcely two pointers are to
be seen so much alike, that a naturalist would
pronounce them to belong to the same class of dogs,
inasmuch as they are dissimilar in size, weight,
and appearance. We recognise only two pointers,
the Spaniard and the mongrel. Nearly all the
pointers we see are, in fact, mongrels, although
each may have more or less of the original Spanish
blood. Such, however, is the force of nature,
that a dog having in him very little of the blood
of the pointer may prove a very serviceable dog
to the shooter. We frequently meet with very
good dogs dogs deemed by their owners first-
rate which bear little resemblance, in point of
shape and appearance, to the true pointer ; some
of these have the sharp nose of the fox, others
the snubbed nose of the bull-dog ; in short, there
is every possible diversity in size and appearance,
from the greyhound to the pug. The excellence
of such dogs must be attributed to judicious
treatment, severe discipline, or from having been
constantly out with a good shot, or in company
with highly-trained dogs. It is, however, a mis-
take to suppose that they are of a proper strain
to breed from. Their offspring will be deformed,
and will probably manifest some of the worst and
more hidden qualities of the parents.
The attempt to lay down a written rule whereby
POINTERS AND SETTERS. 91
to distinguish between a good and an indifferent
pointer would be futile. How much of the blood
of the pointer a dog has in him will be read in his
countenance, rather than inferred from his general
shape and appearance. There is an indescribable
something in the countenance of a thorough-bred
or nearly thorough-bred pointer, which a little
habit of observation will enable the sportsman to
detect with tolerable accuracy, so that he may
judge of the capabilities of a dog, as a physiog-
nomist will read at a glance a persons disposition
and ability, in his countenance.
The instinct of pointing, we apprehend, is an
indestructible principle in the blood of the pointer,
which, however that blood may be mingled with
inferior blood, will always, in some degree, manifest
itself; and on this ground we build our theory,
that the further any dog is removed from the
original Spanish pointer, the worse the dog is ;
and, consequently, that all attempts to cross the
pointer with any other blood must necessarily de-
teriorate the breed. The grey-hound is seldom or
never crossed to give him additional fleetness, nor
the hound to improve his nose ; why then should
the pointer be crossed with dogs which, in so far
as the sports of the field are concerned, scarcely
inherit one quality in common with him? At-
tempts, however, are constantly made to improve
the pointer by a cross with the blood-hound, fox-
hound, Newfoundland dog, or mastiff, sometimes
with a view of improving his appearance, and
bringing him to some fancied standard of perfec-
92 SHOOTING.
tion; but in reality inducing a deformity. One
of these imaginary standards of perfection is, that
to one part thorough Spanish blood, the pointer
should have in him an eighth of the fox-hound,
and a sixteenth of the blood-hound. A cross will
sometimes produce dogs which are, in some eyes,
the beau ideal of beauty ; but however handsome
such dogs may be, they will necessarily possess
some quality not belonging to the pointer; for
instance, a cross with the hound gives the propen-
sity to trace hares, if not to give tongue. A
thorough-bred pointer carries his head well up
when ranging ; he will not give tongue, nor has
he much desire to chase footed game. The hound
pointer may be sometimes detected by his coarse
ears, by his tail being curled upwards, and being
carried high, or by his rough coat. An occasional
cross with the mastiff or Newfoundland dog is said
to increase the fineness of nose, but it is converting
the pointer into a mere retriever. Another, and
the main source of the unsightliness of sporting
dogs, is the allowing an indiscriminate intercourse
between pointers and setters. Good dogs may be
thus obtained sometimes, but they are invariably
mis-shapen ; they have generally the head and
brush tail of the setter, with the body of the
pointer, and their coats are not sleek, and instead
of standing at their point, they will crouch. When
the sire is nearly thorough-bred, dogs of a supe-
rior description, but certainly not the best, are
sometimes produced by the Newfoundland or some
other bitch not strictly a pointer. We are not
DOG-BREAKING. 93
willing to allow that the pointer is improved in
any quality that renders him valuable to the
sportsman, by a cross with the hound or any other
sort of dog ; though we cannot deny that the setter
is materially improved in appearance by a cross
with the Newfoundland, but what it gains in ap-
pearance, it loses in other respects.
Breeding mongrels, especially crossing with
hounds, has given the gamekeepers and dog-break-
ers an infinity of trouble which might have been
avoided by keeping the blood pure. The best
pointer is the offspring of a pointer-bitch by a
pointer-dog ; such an one is nearly broken by na-
ture. The Spanish pointer seldom requires the
whip; the hound pointer has never enough of it.
One of the main sources of the sportsman"^ pleasure
is to see the dogs point well.
Dogs should be constantly shot over during the
season by a successful shot, and exercised during
the shooting recess by some person who under-
stands well the management of them, otherwise
they will fall off in value the half-bred ones will
become unmanageable, and even the thorough-bred
ones will acquire disorderly habits.
We look upon the setter to be an inferior kind
of pointer, perhaps originally a cross between the
pointer and the spaniel or some such dog as the
Newfoundland, for it has some qualities in com-
mon with each. The pointer has the finer nose,
and is more staunch than the setter ; his action is
much finer. Pointers are averse to water ; setters
delight in it. The setter will face briars and gorse
94 SHOOTING.
bushes better than the pointer, which is in this re-
spect a tender dog ; and for this reason the setter
is preferred to the pointer for cover shooting. Be-
sides, his being not so staunch as the pointer is an
additional advantage in heavy covers. The sports-
man who shoots over well-broken pointers, fre-
quently passes game in woods, while the pointers,
which are not seen by him, are at their point ; the
setter, being more impatient to run in, affords the
shooter many shots in cover, which the over-staunch
pointer would not. The pointer is always to be
preferred on open grounds. In hot weather the
pointer will endure more fatigue than the setter.
DOG-BREAKING.
To ensure good sport, the shooter must be pro-
vided with good dogs. However abundant game
may be, there can be no real sport without good
dogs ; and however scarce game may be, a good
day's sport is attainable with good dogs, by a per-
son who feels what sport is, and who does not look
upon filling the game-bag and loading the keepers
with game, as the sole end and aim of the sports-
man^s occupation. The mere act of killing game
no more constitutes sport, than the jingling of
rhyme constitutes poetry. Since, then, good dogs
contribute to good sport, the shooter should be
careful to whom he entrusts the breaking of them.
Bad habits, by dogs as well as by bipeds, are sooner
acquired than got rid of. If it suit his convenience,
the shooter should frequently accompany the break-
ers when practising his dogs : he should direct them
DOG-BREAKING.
95
to make use of few words, and those words should
be the same that he is in the habit of using. A
multiplicity of directions only serves to puzzle a
dog, as a person's speaking Irish, Scotch, and
Welsh alternately would perplex a Spaniard !
In common with other sports, shooting has a
vocabulary of its own. We subjoin a list of some
of the words made use of by breakers and sports-
men to dogs, many of them being anything but
euphonious to the unaccustomed ear. To-ho spoken
in an under tone, when the dog is ranging, is a
warning to him that he is close upon game, and is
a direction to him to stand. There is no necessity
for using it to a dog that knows his business.
Spoken in a peremptory manner, it is used to make
the dog crouch when he has run up game, or been
otherwise in fault. Down-charge, or down-to-charge,
is to make the dog crouch while the shooter charges.
Take-heed, and be-careful, are used when the dog
ranges over ground where it is customary to find
birds. Take-heed, is a word of correction ; be-
careful, of encouragement. The former is used by
way of caution or notice to prevent the dog putting
up birds by running over the ground too fast ; the
latter is likewise a caution, but used when the dog
beats slowly or carelessly. Back, is used to make
a dog follow at heel. ** Ware fence, is used to pre-
vent dogs passing a fence before the gun. The
dog should never, on any account, leave an enclo-
sure until its master has left it. ' Ware or beware, is
used to rate a dog for giving chase to a hare, birds,
96 SHOOTING.
or cattle, or for pointing larks, or approaching too
near the heels of a horse. Seek, is a direction to
the dog to look for a dead or wounded bird, hare,
or rabbit. Dead., is to make a dog relinquish his
hold of dead or wounded game. The dog should
not touch a dead bird, but should retain possession
of wounded game until it is taken from him ; for
should he suffer a bird that is only slightly wounded
to disengage himself from his grasp, another seek
becomes necessary, and the bird is either lost, or
despoiled of its plumage by the catching and re-
catching.
The dog should fall when the gun is fired, and
remain down until he is told to seek, when he
should point the dead bird. A pointer that drops
to shot, becomes an excellent retriever.
The dog should be taught to obey the eye and
the hand, rather than the voice. A dog that will
do so is invaluable, in open grounds, when birds
are wild !
Whenever speaking to a dog, whether encourag-
ingly or reprovingly, the sportsman should endea-
vour to look what he means, and the dog will under-
stand him. The dog will understand the look, if
he does not the words. The sportsman should
never, with a smile on his countenance, punish a
dog; nor commend him when he has done well,
but with an apparent hearty good will : the dog
will then take an interest in obeying him. Game-
keepers and dog-breakers are often odd fellows, and
seldom natives of the place where they follow their
DOG-BREAKING. 97
avocation. Many of them are particularly loqua-
cious to the dogs. Should one of these queer speci-
mens jabber in a Cornish or Yorkshire dialect to a
dog trained on the Grampians, the dog will under-
stand from his look whether he is pleased or offend-
ed, but nothing more. The dog has not the gift of
tongues, but he is a Lavater in physiognomy !
A dog-breaker who has not a good temper, or
what is tantamount thereto, a plentiful store of
patience, should never be employed, or he will ruin
any really valuable dog entrusted to his care. Dog-
breakers are an impatient race of people, and it is
but natural that they should be so, since nothing
tries the patience more than the management of a
number of young dogs of different dispositions, ex-
cept shooting over bad ones.
A young dog that carries his head well up when
beating, should be chosen in preference to one that
hunts with his nose on the ground.* The hand-
somest dog is that which shows the most breed ;
the most valuable that which affords the sportsman
the greatest number of shots.
It is more desirable to break young dogs in com-
pany with a pointer than with a setter. The for-
mer makes a more decided point than the latter.
The dog should be taught to quarter his ground
well. He should cross over before the shooter con-
tinually, at not more than twenty paces distance
in advance, ranging about thirty paces on either
hand, and leaving no part of his ground unbeaten.
* It is not only the best dog that carries his head up, but game
will suffer him to approach nearer than one that tracks them.
98 SHOOTING.
If in company with other dogs, he should not
follow them, but each dog should beat indepen-"
dently.
The dog may be taught to back or back-set, by
the breaker holding up his hand and crying to-ho !
when another dog makes a point. A well-bred dog
will invariably back-set instinctively. To back-set
instinctively is the distinctive characteristic of a
promising young dog ; indeed, it is the only safe
standard by which the shooter may venture to
prognosticate future excellence. A dog's pointing
game and larks the first time he is taken out, is no
certain criterion of merit : but there is no deception
in a dog's backing instinctively the first time he
sees another dog make a point. It is a proof that
he is a scion from the right stock.
The shooter should kill nothing but game over a
young dog, or the dog will never learn his business.
He should of all things avoid shooting larks and
field-fares. When the shooter is in the habit of
killing small birds, such as larks sometimes, and at
other times is in the habit of correcting him for
pointing them, the dog becomes confused, and is
puzzled when he comes upon a snipe, whether to
point or not. Where game is scarce, the best dogs
will occasionally point larks : and it requires much
time to teach a young dog that they are not game,
and to break him off pointing them when once he
has acquired the habit.
When punishing a dog, it is better to beat him
with a slender switch than with a dog-whip. But
whether a switch or dog-whip be used, the dog
THE SPANIEL. 99
should be struck across, not along, the ribs ; or, in
other words, the switch or lash should not be made
to lap round his body, but the blow should fall on
the whole length of his side. A dog should never
be kicked, or shaken by the ears. When the
shooter is unprovided with a switch or dog-whip,
he should make the dog lie at his foot several mi-
nutes, which the dog, eager for sport, will consider
a severe punishment, and it is a sort of punishment
not soon forgotten.
The routine of dog-breaking is well explained in
the note at the foot of this page. We very much
approve of the system there laid down.*
* " The first lesson^ and the one on which the breaker's success
chiefly depends, is that of teaching the dog to drop at the word
s down ;' this must be done before he is taken into the field. Tie a
strong cord to his neck, about eighteen yards long, and peg one end
into the ground. Then make the dog crouch down, with his nose
between his front feet, calling out in a loud voice ' down? As often
as he attempts to rise, pull him to the ground, and repeat the word
6 down 9 each time. When he lies perfectly quiet while you are
standing by him, walk away, and if he attempt to follow you, walk
back, and make him ( down 9 again, giving him a cut or two with
the whip. This lesson must be repeated very often, and will take
some trouble before it is properly inculcated. When once learned it
is never forgotten, and if properly taught in the beginning, will save
an infinity of trouble in the end. He ought never to be suffered to
rise, until touched by the hand. This lesson should be practised be-
fore his meals, and he will perform it much better as he expects his
food, and never feed him till you are perfectly satisfied with his per-
formance. After you have been flogging him, always part friends,
and never let him escape while you are chastising him, at least, if he
does, do not pursue him, as if he sees (which he soon will) that he is
the quicker runner of the two, all discipline will be at an end.
" When he has become tolerably steady, and learned to come in to
the call, and to drop to the hand, he must be taught to range and
quarter his ground ; a thing which is seldom seen in perfection. On
100 SHOOTING.
THE SPANIEL, COCK DOG, OR SPRINGER.
Spaniels are the best dogs for beating covers,
provided they can be kept near the gun. They
are generally expected to give tongue when game
is flushed : some spaniels will give notice of game
before it rises, which is very well where wood-
cocks only are expected to be found. Woodcock
and pheasant shooting are often combined ; when
that is the case, a noisy cry is not desirable :
pheasant shooting cannot be conducted too quietly
where covers are limited. Wherever the under-
wood is so thick that the shooter cannot keep his
eye on the dogs, spaniels are to be preferred to
pointers or setters, whatever species of game the
shooter may be in pursuit of. When spaniels are
brought to such a state of discipline as to be ser-
viceable in an open country, they will require no
further tutoring to fit them for the woods, unless
it be that the eye of their master not being always
on them, they begin to ramble. The efficiency of
the training of spaniels for cover- shooting depends,
some good brisk morning choose a nice piece of ground, where you
are likely to find. Take care to give him the wind, i. e. to let him
have the wind blowing in his face, wave your hand with * hey on good
dog,' and let him run off to the right hand to the distance of about
eighty yards." (We suggest thirty.) " Call him in, and, by another
wave of the hand, let him go off to the same distance to the left.
Walk straightforward with your eye always on him. Go on and let
him keep crossing you from right to left, and vice versa, calling him
in when at the limit of his range. This is a difficult lesson, and re-
quires great nicety in teaching. Never let him hunt the same ground
twice over. Always have your eye on him, and watch every motion."
New Sporting Magazine, vol. v. No. 28, p. 256.
THE RETRIEVER. 101
for the most part, on their keeping near the shooter;
for if they riot, they are the worst dogs he can
hunt.*
THE RETRIEVER.
The business of the retriever is to find lost game.
Newfoundland dogs are the best for the purpose.
They should have a remarkably fine sense of smel-
ling, or they will be of little use in tracing a
wounded pheasant, or other game, through a thick
cover, where many birds have been running about.
A good retriever will follow the bird on whose track
he is first put, as a blood-hound will that of a human
being or deer. He should be taught to bring
* " There is much less trouble in making a spaniel steady than at
first thought may be imagined. A puppy eight months old, intro-
duced amongst three or four well-broken dogs, is easily taught his
business. The breaker should use him to a cord of twenty yards
length or so, before he goes into the field, and then take him out with
the pack. Many a young dog is quiet and obedient from the first ;
another is shy, and stares and runs about as much at the rising of the
birds as the report of the gun. Shortly he gets over this, and takes
a part in the sport he then begins to chase, but finding he is not
followed after little birds or game, he returns ; and should he not,
and commence hunting out of shot, which is very likely, he must be
called in, and flogged or rated, as his temper calls for. With care
and patience, he will soon 6 pack up' with the others, especially if
that term is used when the dogs are dividing ; and if not, he may be
checked by treading on the cord, and rated or beaten as his fault re-
quires. Spaniels will, in general, stand more whipping than other
dogs, but care must be taken not to be too lavish nor severe with it
at first, or the dog becomes cowed, and instead of hunting will sneak
along at heel.
(6 Having learned him to hunt in his place, or rather at a proper
distance for with spaniels distance is to be inculcated first and princi-
pally the next things to be attempted in turn, are to learn him
( down charge' to prevent his chasing hares to come in when
needed to hunt the contrary side of a Jiedge; and then his education
for shooting in the open is about complete time will do the rest."
Neiv Sporting Magazine, vol. v. No. 29, p. 337.
102 SHOOTING.
his game, or in many instances his finding a
wounded bird would be of no advantage to the
shooter.
KENNEL TREATMENT.
The best regular food for sporting dogs is oatmeal
well boiled, and flesh, which may be either boiled
with the meal or given raw. In hot weather, dogs
should not have either oatmeal or flesh in a raw
state, as they are heating. Potatoes boiled are
good summer food, and an excellent occasional
variety in winter, but they should be cleaned be-
fore being boiled, and well dried after, or they will
produce disease. Roasted potatoes are equally
good, if not better. The best food to bring dogs
into condition, and to preserve their wind in hot
weather, is sago boiled to a jelly, half a pound of
which may be given to each dog daily, in addition
to potatoes or other light food ; a little flesh meat
or a few bones being allowed every alternate day.
Dogs should have whey or butter-milk two or three
times a week during summer, when it can be pro-
cured, or in lieu thereof, should have a table-spoon-
ful of flour of sulphur once a fortnight. To bring
a dog into condition for the season, we would give
him a very large table-spoonful of sulphur about
a fortnight before the 12th of August, and two
days after giving him that, a full table-spoonful of
syrup of buckthorn should be administered, and
afterwards twice repeated at intervals of three days,
the dog being fed on the sago diet the while. There
should always be fresh water within reach. Dogs
should never be chained up.
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 103
A fortnight's attention to diet, bedding, and
exercise, will bring a dog into condition, however
lean or cumbrous he may be, if not diseased. Dogs
should be allowed plenty of exercise. They can-
not be too often taken out, either with or without
a gun, by a person who understands their manage-
ment, and is disposed to attend to them. Their
kennels should be warm and dry, and, if not under
cover, should be placed in sheltered situations.
The straw should be often changed, as cleanliness
is indispensable to health. They should be kept
free from ticks : when a dog is tormented with these
troublesome creatures, he should be well rubbed
with a mixture of train oil and spirit of turpentine,
which may be washed off the next day with soft
soap. The health of a dog is indicated by his
sleek appearance, by the looseness and softness of
his pursy and glossy skin.
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.
We commence our notice of feathered game with
the partridge, as shooting that bird is generally the
young sportsman's first lesson, although in the order
of the season grouse shooting takes precedence.
The partridge may be termed a home bird, for
the shooter who resides in the country, finds it
almost at his door, while it is requisite to under-
take a journey, perchance a very long one, before
he arrives at the grounds frequented by grouse.
As it requires neither woods, nor marshes, nor
heaths to 'afford them shelter, they are found more
widely scattered than the pheasant, the woodcock,
104 SHOOTING.
or the grouse, and hence the pursuit of them is one
of the chief sources of recreation to the shooter.
They are more plentiful in England than either in
Ireland or Scotland. Though not so highly prized
by the sportsman as the birds last mentioned, the
abundance in which partridges are found, wherever
they are preserved, renders the sport sufficiently
attractive. At the commencement of the season,
when they have not been much disturbed by per-
sons breaking dogs, they are as tame as could be
wished by the most inexpert sportsman, and at
that time afford capital diversion to the young
shooter, and to those rheumatic and gouty old
gentlemen who too fond of their ease to brush
the covers or range the mountains in the lowland
valleys, " shoulder their crutch, and show how
fields were won." Partridges are most plentiful in
those countries where much grain, pulse, and white
crops are grown. While the corn is standing
which is no uncommon occurrence in the northern
counties in September it is very rare that many
shots can be obtained, for the coveys, on being dis-
turbed, wing their way to the nearest corn-field,
where it is forbidden the shooter to follow them, or
to send his dogs in after them.
The habits of the partridge should be studied by
the shooter. In the early part of the season, par-
tridges will be found, just before sunrise, running to
a brook, a spring, or marsh, to drink ; from which
place they almost immediately fly to some field
where they can find abundance of insects, or else
to the nearest corn-field or stubble-field, where they
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 105
will remain, according to the state of the weather,
or other circumstances, until nine or ten o 1 clock,
when they go to ba'sk. The basking-place is com-
monly on a sandy bank-side facing the sun, where
the whole covey sits huddled together for several
hours. About four or five o'clock, they return to
the stubbles to feed, and about six or seven they
go to their jucking-place, a place of rest for the
night, which is mostly in aftermath, or in a rough
pasture field, where they remain huddled together
until morning. Such are their habits during the
early part of the season ; but their time of feeding
and basking varies much with the length of the
days. While the corn is standing, unless the
weather be very fine or very wet, partridges will
often remain in it all day ; when fine, they bask on
the outskirts ; when wet, they run to some bare
place in a sheltered situation, where they will be
found crowded together as if basking, for they sel-
dom remain long in corn or grass when it is wet.
Birds lie best on a hot day. They are wildest on
a damp or boisterous day.
The usual way of proceeding in search of par-
tridges in September is to try the stubbles first,
and next the potato and turnip field. Birds fre-
quently bask amongst potatoes or turnips, especially
when those fields are contiguous to a stubble-field.
The best partridge shooting is obtained in potato
and turnip fields. It not unfrequently happens
that potatoes or turnips are grown on a headland
in a corn field ; in that case the headland will be a
favourite resort of birds.
106 SHOOTING.
After the middle of October, it is ever uncertain
where birds will be found ; the stubbles having been
pretty well gleaned, birds do not remain in them
so long as in the early part of the season. When
disturbed at this time, they will sometimes take
shelter in woods, where they are flushed one by one.
The best shots that can be obtained at partridges
in winter, are when the birds are driven into woods.
When a covey separates, the shooter will gene-
rally be able to kill many birds, but late in the
season it is seldom that the covey can be broken.
In November and December the shooter must not
expect to have his birds pointed, but must remain
content with firing at long distances. In the early
part of the season, when the shooter breaks a covey,
he should proceed without loss of time in search of
the dispersed birds, for the parent birds begin to
call almost immediately on their alighting, the
young ones answer, and in less than half an hour,
if not prevented by the presence of the shooter
and his dogs, the whole covey will be re-assembled,
probably in security in some snug corner, where
the shooter least thinks of looking for them. As
the season advances, birds are longer in re-assem-
bling after being dispersed. It is necessary to beat
very closely for dispersed birds, as they do not stir
for some time after alighting, on which account
dogs cannot wind them until nearly upon them,
especially as they resort to the roughest places
when dispersed. Birds dispersed afford the primest
sport. The pointing is often beautiful, the bird
being generally in -a patch of rushes, or tuft of
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 107
grass or fern, and close to the dog. When a bird
has been running about some time, dogs easily
come upon the scent of it ; but when it has not
stirred since alighting, and has perhaps crept into
^ a drain, or run into a hedge-bottom, or the sedgy
side of a ditch, no dog can wind it until close upon
it, and the very best dogs will sometimes flush a
single bird. In the month of October, and after-
wards, the shooter will find it difficult to approach
within gun-shot of a covey, nor can he disperse
them, except by firing at them when he chances to
come close upon them. Should he then be so for-
tunate as to disperse a covey, he may follow them
leisurely, for they will then lie several hours in
their lurking-place, which is chosen with much
tact, as a patch of rushes, a gorse bush, a holly
bush, the bottom of a double bank fence, or a cop-
pice or wood. The length of time that will trans-
pire before a dispersed covey will re-assemble, de-
pends too on the time of the day, and state of the
weather. In hot weather, they will lie still for
several hours. A covey dispersed early in the
morning, or late at night, will soon re-assernble.
A covey dispersed between the hours of ten and
two, will be some time in re-assembling. A covey
found in the morning in a stubble-field, and dis-
persed, will next assemble near the basking-place.
A covey dispersed after two o* clock, will next
assemble in the stubble-field at feeding time. A
covey disturbed and dispersed late in the afternoon,
or evening, will next re-assemble near the jucking-
place. A covey being disturbed on or near to their
108 SHOOTING.
jucking-place, will seek a fresh one, perhaps about
two fields distant ; and if often disturbed at night
on their jucking-place, they will seek another
stubble-field to feed in, and change their quarters
altogether. The most certain method of driving
partridges from a farm, is to disturb them night
after night at their jucking-place, which is usually
in a meadow, where the aftermath is suffered to
grow, or in a field rough with rushes, fern, thistles,
or heather, adjoining to a corn-field. When a
covey is dispersed on a dry hot day, it is necessary
to search much longer, and beat closer, for the dis-
persed birds, than when the day is cool and the
ground moist. A dog should be only slightly rated
for running up a bird on a hot day.
The shooter, on entering a field, should make it
a general rule, provided the wind or nature of the
ground do not lead him to decide on a contrary
course, to beat that side which is nearest the
covers ; or, if there be no neighbouring covers, he
should beat round the field, leaving the centre of
the field to the last. In hot weather birds frequent
bare places, sunny hill-sides, or sandy banks, at
the root of a tree, or hedge-bottom, where there is
plenty of loose loam or sand which they can
scratch up. In cold weather they will be found
in sheltered places. In cold windy weather those
fields only which lie under the wind should be
beaten. The warm valleys, the briary cloughs,
and glens not over-wooded, but abounding in fern,
underwood, and holly trees, and also those steep
hill-sides which lie under the wind, are then places
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 109
of resort. Heights and flats must be avoided,
except where there are small enclosures well pro-
tected by double hedges, under the shelter of which
birds will remain. The shooter who beats the
south or west side of a hedge, will generally obtain
more shots than he who beats the north or east
side. Unless there be continual rain, or it be the
depth of winter, birds will visit their basking
place some time in the course of the day, whether
the sun shine or not. The basking-place is gene-
rally, but not invariably, on the sunny side of the
hedge. Birds may be most easily approached in
fine weather. All kinds of birds lie better in
small enclosures than in large ones, that is, when
the cover in each is alike. It need scarcely be
added, that the more bushy the brambles, or the
higher the grass, rushes, or heather, the more
closely will lie the game.
It is almost as necessary to the shooter as to
the mariner to observe the wind. Whenever it is
practicable, he should beat up wind. On entering
"an enclosure his eye will tell him where the best
beat lies. The field may be so large that it will
be necessary to walk across it several times. The
shooter having discovered what he supposes to be
the best beat, and having learnt the way of the
wind, should, as he walks against the wind, tra-
verse the best ground in order to give the dog the
wind ; for the dog will not only find more game
by beating up wind than down, but the birds will
lie better. When the shooter is obliged to walk
down wind, he should traverse the most unlikely
] 10 SHOOTING.
ground, always reserving that portion of the field
next cover, or that which seems to possess some
local advantage for his up-wind beats.
When the shooter has been long accustomed to
a dog, he can tell by the dog's proceeding, whether
game is near or not when pointed, or whether the
birds are running before the dog. If he suspect
them to be running, he must walk up quickly be-
fore his dog, for if he stop or appear to look about
him, the birds instantly rise. Whenever it is prac-
ticable, unless the birds be very tame and his dogs
young ones, the shooter should place himself so that
the birds may be between him and the dogs. They
will then lie well. The moment a dog points, the
first thing to be done is to cast a glance round to
ascertain in which direction the covers and corn-
fields lie ; the next is to learn the point of the
wind ; the shooter will then use his endeavour
to gain the wind of the birds, and to place him-
self between them and the covers, or otherwise
avail himself of other local circumstances. All
this must be done in a moment, and it requires
some judgment. A person who knows how to walk
up to a dog will obtain more shots than one who
does not, especially in windy weather. Birds will
not only allow the shooter to approach nearer to
them when he faces the wind, but they present on
rising, a fairer mark.
When the legs of a bird fired at fall, it is almost
a certain proof that it is struck in a vital part. A
bird so struck should be narrowly watched, when,
in most instances, it will be seen, after flying about
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. Ill
a hundred yards if a grouse, or fifty yards if a par-
tridge, to tower or spire in the air, and fall down
dead. When only one leg falls, the bird should be
watched, but in the latter case, it generally happens
that the leg or thigh only has been struck. Any
bird that flinches, on being fired at, or whose feathers
are in the least disordered, should be marked down,
and followed. Grouse more frequently fly away
wounded than partridges. Grouse are often recover-
ed several hundred yards from the gun.
Until November or December, young grouse,
black-game, partridges, and pheasants, may be dis-
tinguished from old ones by the lower beak not
being strong enough to bear the weight of their
bodies. The lower beak of an old partridge is strong
enough to sustain the weight of a brace of birds ;
but a young bird cannot be raised by the lower beak
without the lower beak bending under the weight.
The head of a buck hare is larger, and the neck and
ears are shorter than of a doe. Old hares may be
distinguished from full-grown young hares by the
strength of their jaw-bones, or the closeness of the
knee-joint of the fore-legs.
The number of birds in a covey varies much,
perhaps the average may be from ten to fifteen.
In some years, when the coveys are large after a
fine hatching season, it is not uncommon to see
upwards of twenty birds in a covey; and some-
times after a wet season, ten birds may be deemed
a fair covey. Birds are most numerous after a
dry summer. When there are thunder-storms
about midsummer, great numbers of young birds
112 SHOOTING.
are drowned. The young birds have many enemies
besides the elements, such as cats, young dogs,
hawks, foxes, and vermin of different descriptions.
When the eggs are taken, or the young birds de-
stroyed soon after leaving the shell, there will be a
second hatch. Sportsmen often meet with second
hatches in September, when the old birds rise
screaming, and generally alight within fifty yards,
as if to induce the young birds to follow. In that
case the fair sportsman will not fire at the old
birds, but will call in his dogs and leave the
ground. At such times he should look well after
the young dogs, as, when they see the birds run-
ning, they are apt to snap up such of them as
cannot get out of the way. The very young birds
are called cheepers, from their uttering a scream
as they rise. Full grown birds never scream as
they rise, except when the young ones are helpless,
nor do young birds after they are large enough for
the table.
There are shooters who acquire an unsportsman-
like habit of firing at a covey immediately as it
rises, before the birds are fairly on the wing, and,
thus without aiming at any individual bird, bring
down two or three. And sometimes they will
make a foul shot by flanking a covey ; the birds
being on the wing, come upon them suddenly, and
make a simultaneous wheel ; they take them on
the turn, when, for a moment and but for a
moment half the covey are in a line, and floor
them rank and file. These are tricks allied to
poaching, and almost as reprehensible as shooting
PHEASANT SHOOTING.
at birds on the ground, which is nothing less than
high treason, unless the shooter is upon his own
land, where he may plead his right to do what he
will with his own the prerogative of an English-
man !
The cock partridge is distinguished from the
hen by the brown feathers which form a crescent,
or horse-shoe, as it is sometimes called, on the
breast.
The pointer is decidedly the best dog for par-
tridge shooting.
Bustards and quails are so rare in this country
as scarcely to require notice here. They are, how-
ever, valuable acquisitions to the game-bag. As the
bustard cannot be approached unless the shooter
takes advantage of some adventitious circumstances,
it is seldom an object of pursuit to the sportsman.
Bustard shooting commences on the 1st of Sep-
tember, and ends on the 1st of March. The quail
would be much sought after if abundant.
THE PHEASANT.
Many home-bred shooters imagine that pheasant
shooting is the ne plus ultra of sporting. It has
something of aristocracy and luxury associated with
it, and it is doubtless splendid sport. It commences
when the leaves of the forest are tinged with every
varying tint : and the old woods never look so
noble as in their autumnal garb. The pheasant-
shooter is often amid scenery,
Where looks the cottage out on a domain,
The palace cannot boast of !
K
SHOOTING.
The bird, arrayed in mail of gold, rises in some
deep-wooded glen, where the sound of his wings
may be compared to thunder, such the effect of
reverberation in the echoing valleys ! the golden
plumage glitters in the sun ! the report of the
fowling-piece is like that of a small piece of ordnance !
the blue neck falls instantly under the burnished
wing ! the pinions close ! and the next moment,
the " whirring pheasant," the pride of the British
woods, lies bleeding on the ground ! the long-rolling
echo dies in the distance, and the stillness of
Arcady again reigns around ! Such is pheasant-
shooting ; but with all its attractions, it is not, in
the opinion of many sportmen, to be compared
with the pursuit of the grouse through the track-
less heather, or of the scarcer woodcock in the
winter woods. It is the rarity and difficulty of
attainment of a bird that renders the acquisition of
it desirable to the true sportsman. He does not
estimate the value of a blackcock, which he may
have had the good fortune to bag in November, by
the current price of the day.
The pheasant is the most splendidly arrayed of
undomesticated British birds. It is deservedly in
high request amongst sportsmen, and it claims the
first attention of the game-preserver. The number-
less plantations and coppices which are everywhere
springing up, afford yearly additional shelter. The
pheasant prefers woods of oak and beech, that it
may feed on the acorns and mast. The fine old
woods consisting of these trees may perhaps be
diminishing, but they are more than replaced by
PHEASANT SHOOTING. J15
plantations of larch or other quick-growing trees.
Pheasants generally choose the larch or spruce-fir
to roost in, and plantations of this description, if
near corn, turnip, or potato fields, afford sufficient
cover for them. They are, in many counties,
allowed to become so numerous, as to do serious
mischief to the labours of husbandry.
It is not usual to kill the hens wherever pheasants
are strictly preserved ; but it is necessary to kill
the cocks where they are too numerous. Pheasants
do not pair. As it is better that there should be
but few cocks, the shooter's being able to single
them out and kill them, tends ultimately to the
increase, and not to the diminution of the number
of birds in cover. At the commencement of the
season the shooter will frequently flush a nide of
pheasants, but in the after part of the season he
will oftener find solitary birds. Pheasants will
occasionally wander a considerable distance from
the wood to which they belong, especially during
winter in search of food, and in wet and foggy
weather. The pheasant basks at the root of a tree,
or under a hedge, in the same manner as the
partridge, but each bird nestles itself separately.
Pheasants approach nearer to domesticated poultry
than any other kind of game. Pheasant shooting
is most destructive where the plantations are not
more than forty yards wide, when the shooters
remain on the outside, while the beaters and dogs
put up the game within. The pheasant shooter
does not expect set shots ; his object is to cause the
birds to rise as near to him as he can. Having no
116 SHOOTING.
notice of them, he should ever be on the alert for
snap shots.
A short double-barrelled fowling-piece, of wide
bore, is preferable to a long one. The shot should
be large, and it is well to use plenty of it. A close-
shooting gun is not to be recommended to the
pheasant shooter. The birds should rarely be
fired at in cover when more than thirty yards from
the gun, or they will escape wounded in the under-
wood. They are generally brought down within
twenty yards from the gun. Pheasants are most
plentiful in Norfolk, Suffolk, and some of the
adjoining counties. There are some in every
county in England, and in most of the counties in
Scotland. A perfect bird has a white annular
space on the neck, but this mark is mostly wanting.
The pheasant makes a considerable noise when
rising, sufficiently so to unnerve the young and
over- anxious sportsman. The bird should be al-
lowed to rise clear of the bushes, and to its full
height, before the shooter fires at it, or it is
probable he will fire too low ; and again, the short
fan-like feathers on either side of the tail appear,
as the bird is rising, to be part of the bird, making
the body seem longer and larger than it really is ;
and this circumstance, together with the rapidity
of the movement of the bird when rising, is the
cause of the shooter firing too low. The aim should
always be at the head, unless the bird is crossing,
and then well forward. Firing too soon, lest the
bird should be out of reach, is a very common error,
particularly with young sportsmen.
PHEASANT SHOOTING. 117
The best time to find pheasants out of cover is
the first hour after sunrise, while they are feeding
in the adjacent stubble and turnip fields. When
they have done feeding, a few stragglers, instead of
returning to the cover, will remain under the
hedges of the fields in which they feed. At noon,
when the sun shines brightly, a few will venture
out of the woods, and bask under thick hedges, or
holly-bushes, or amongst brambles, but seldom at
any great distance from cover. During a dense
fog, pheasants venture farthest from the woods.
While the leaves are upon the trees, they seldom
wander far from the place where they were hatched,
or the wood or plantation to which they may be
said to belong.
At the beginning of October, pheasant-shooting
is combined with hare and partridge shooting, the
sport being conducted on the outside of the larger
and denser covers, or in the brakes or coppices,
where the foliage does not intercept a view of the
rising birds. The young ones are then by no
means full-grown, nor have they attained that
brilliancy of plumage, which they afterwards acquire.
They are more alarmed at the dog than at the
shooter, and consequently, to avoid the former will
fly almost in the face of the latter. Towards the
end of October, when the leaves fall, and the
brambles decay, the sportsman ventures within the
covers.
In November, pheasant shooting is combined
with woodcock shooting ; the trees are leafless, the
sportsman's gap and gun- road are open ; and if,
118 SHOOTING.
in addition to pheasants and cocks, there should be
blackgame in cover, there can scarcely be better
diversion. Cocks are abundant. Pheasants and
blackgame are well-grown, well-fed, and in full
plumage : the pheasant is scaled with gold to the
throat, and the blackcock is feathered to the foot !
Shooting, this month, requires perseverance and
labour, but the contents of his bird-bag will amply
compensate the sportsman for both, if he regard the
length of the pheasants, the number of the wood-
cocks, and the weight of the blackcocks. November,
when the weather is favourable, is unquestionably
the best month for cover-shooting. A brace of
full-feathered November pheasants, to the true
sportsman, are worth a bag-full of October poults.
Pheasants and blackgame do not pair, like red
grouse and partridges. It is unsportsmanlike to
kill either a grey-hen, (which is the female of the
blackcock,) or a hen-pheasant. The pheasant is a
strong bird, and requires a heavy blow, to disable
him from running, when brought down.
Beaters are almost as serviceable as dogs in
cover-shooting; they should be sent into the thickest
and most impervious parts. The shooter who
chooses an open beat, in a part where little game
is expected to be found, will kill more than he who
is entangled in hollies and brambles, though the birds
be rising all round him. When beating woods, the
judicious shooter will generally place himself well
forward, and so that he can have a distinct view of
all birds that rise or fly past, within shot of him,
and in those open glades, where the footed game
PHEASANT SHOOTING. 119
may be seen bolting out ; and, if local circumstances
permit, he will, before the cover is completely
beaten, place himself between it and the adjacent
woods, as in all probability, where not intercepted
by the shooters, every pheasant will endeavour to
make off in the same direction.
For reasons which we have before adverted to,
the setter, or cock-dog, is to be preferred to the
pointer for pheasant shooting. Pheasants will some-
times lie very close, so that it is with great difficulty
they can be made to rise ; therefore dogs that will
dash into the thicket are most useful. For cover-
shooting, where game is abundant, retrievers are
indispensable Many birds are recovered by them
that would otherwise be lost ; and much time is
saved.*
* Mr. Waterton's observations on the pheasant are particularly
valuable. After exploring the wild woods of Guiana and combat-
ting crocodiles and boa-constrictors on the banks of the Essiquibo,
he retired to his patrimonial estate in Yorkshire, whence he has
banished the tube of the sportsman and gamekeeper, and where, in
his own words, he has " shut the temple of Janus, and proclaimed
undisturbed repose to those of the feathered race which come to
seek for shelter." He consequently enjoys as good, perhaps better,
opportunities than any other individual, of observing the habits of
many of our British birds in a state of quiescence. He thus writes
on the pheasant ; but the following is merely a short extract :
" The more we look into the habits of the pheasant, the more we
must be persuaded that much more attention ought to be paid to it,
than is generally paid to other kinds of game. The never-failing
morning and evening notice which it gives of its place of retreat,
together with its superior size, cause it to be soon detected and easily
killed." * * * " The fowling-piece of the nocturnal poacher is
the most fatal weapon used for its destruction. The report of a gun,
or a clap of thunder during the night, will often cause the pheasant to
begin to crow, as I have already stated ; and this greatly endangers
their safety. When once they are frightened from their roost, they
120
SHOOTING.
HARE SHOOTING.
Hares remain in growing corn until the operation
of the sickle compels them to seek some other
never perch again during the remainder of the night : but take
refuge among the grass, and underneath the hedges, where they fall
an easy prey to the cat, the fox, and the stoat. A poacher armed
with a gun finds a cloudy night fully as good for slaughter as one in
which the moon shines ; and, if larch trees grow in the wood, to
these he resorts ; knowing, by experience, that the pheasant prefers
this kind of tree to any other." **,.:. Food and a quiet retreat
are the two best offers that man can make to the feathered race, to
induce them to take up their abode on his domain : and they are
absolutely necessary to the successful propagation of the pheasant.
This bird has a capacious stomach, and requires much nutriment ;
while its timidity soon causes it to abandon those places which are
disturbed. It is fond of acorns, beech mast, the berries of the
hawthorn, the seeds of the wild rose, and the tubers of the Jerusalem
artichoke. As long as these, and the corn dropped in the harvest,
can be procured, the pheasant will do very well. In the spring, it
finds abundance of nourishment in the sprouting leaves of young
clover ; but from the commencement of the new year, till the vernal
period, their wild food affords a very scanty supply ; and the bird
will be exposed to all the evils of the vagrant act, unless you can
contrive to keep it at home by an artificial supply of food. Boiled
potatoes (which the pheasant prefers much to those in a raw state)
and beans, are, perhaps, the two most nourishing things that can be
afforded in the depth of winter. Beans, in the end, are cheaper than
all the smaller kinds of grain ; because the little birds, which usually
HARE SHOOTING. 1 21
shelter. When driven from their summer quarters,
they betake themselves to the woods, or lie con-
cealed under hedges or bushes, or on the steep
sides of brakes or cloughs where there is plenty of
cover, and sometimes in aftermath ; all which situ-
ations they in a great measure abandon when the
autumnal leaves begin to fall. Their next location
is in patches of grass, fern, heather, gorse, brambles,
or rushes, where they are to be found all the winter,
though the best place to look for them in November
is the stubble-field, where they will not unfrequently
be also found in October and December. In Jan-
uary they are often met with in the fallow fields.
Should the weather be warm after the 10th of
January, they will be found in the vicinity of
marshes, or in other low moist situations. In
short, to find hares, the hedges should be beaten
in September, covers in October, stubbles in No-
vember, parks, pastures, and uninclosed grounds
swarm at the place where pheasants are fed, cannot swallow them :
and if you conceal the beans under yew or holly bushes, or under the
lower branches of the spruce fir, they will be out of the way of the
rooks and ring-doves. About two roods of the thousand-headed
cabbage are a most valuable acquisition to the pheasant preserve.
You sow a few ounces of seed in April, and transplant the young
plants two, feet asunder, in the month of June. By the time that the
harvest is all in, these cabbages will afford a most excellent aliment
to the pheasants, and are particularly serviceable when the ground
is deeply covered with snow." * * * " Next to the larch, this
species of tree is generally preferred by the pheasants for their roosting
place ; and it is quite impossible that the poachers can shoot them
in these trees. Moreover, magpies and jays will resort to them at
nightfall ; and they never fail to give the alarm, on the first ap-
pearance of an enemy. Many a time has the magpie been of essential
service to me in a night excursion after poachers." Essays on Orni-
thology, by Charles Waterton, Esq. 2d. Edit. Lond. 1838.
L
122 SHOOTING.
in which there is plenty of fern, gorse, rushes, or
brambles, in December, and fallows and marshy
fields in January.
Leveret shooting often commences with grouse
shooting, on the 12th of August, though it is not
uncommon, nor is it considered unfair, to kill
them during the summer months. Hares are not
in season until September. The shooter should
desist from killing them in February, but he is not
prevented from killing them at any season, by any
legislative enactment, if he have taken out a game
certificate. It is the prescriptive law of the chase,
held sacred by sportsmen, that prevents him.
The shooter should fire well forward at a hare,
and not too high. He should not fire at a long
distance, as the probability of his wounding her
would be greater than that of killing her. If run-
ning direct from him, a hare should not be fired at,
unless within twenty-five paces from the gun, or
she will often run off, though severely wounded in
the hind-quarters. A beater will render essential
service to the shooter in quest of hares, in the early
part of the season ; the beater walks on the con-
trary side of the hedge to the shooter, and a few
yards in advance, so that the hare, to avoid the
former, jumps out on the side of the latter. When
beating hedges in the vicinity of covers, the shooter
should take care to place himself on that side
nearest the covers. When shooting at the edge of
a cover, if the hare fired at is not quite deprived
of the use of her legs, it would be advisable to fire
again immediately, for should she crawl through
RABBIT SHOOTING.
123
the hedge, the chances would be against her being
retrieved.
RABBIT SHOOTING.
Rabbits are alternately deemed game and ver-
min. They are sometimes shot for sport, some-
times for profit, and sometimes on account of
the mischief they do to trees and other vege-
tation. They sometimes seat themselves all day
long, after the manner of hares, but more com-
monly they remain the greater portion of the day
in their burrows. As they are shy of approach,
and run under ground on the least alarm, the
shooter frequently finds it expedient to hide himself
at a little distance from the warren, and wait until
they come out. Where rabbits are numerous, as
in most warrens they are, some will be continually
playing within a few yards of the entrance of the
burrows, and when found in such situations, (for
they are very tenacious of life,) they should be
struck very hard, or they will contrive to crawl,
of rather roll into their earths before the shooter
can pick them up. It is astonishing what efforts
124 SHOOTING.
they will make to escape, though three legs be
broken, when near the entrance of a burrow. It
is of little use firing at them when they are more
than twenty paces distant from the gun. Rabbits
afford more what are termed snap-shots than any
other game, as they are mostly found in or near to
plantations, or amongst brambles, hollies, gorse, or
deep fern, in places of extreme difficulty. It re-
quires a quick eye and steady hand to stop a rabbit
running across furrows, or over uneven ground.
Babbits for sale, or when destroyed as vermin, are
oftener taken by means of ferrets and nets, than
killed by the gun. It would be well that a com-
panion or servant should lead a dog in a slip,
a terrier is as good as any, to be loosed the
moment the gun is fired ; thus many a rabbit
will be secured that would else have run into its
hole. When earthed, it frequently happens that
a rabbit is not able to crawl more than three or
four feet deep from the surface, where it dies, when
it may be recovered by thrusting a bramble down
the hole, and twisting it so as to entangle the
rabbit ; but a more certain method, if the rabbit is
not too far down, is to screw the worm of the ram-
rod into its body, and so drag it out, as a cartridge
is drawn from the barrel of a gun. The best time
for rabbit shooting is in the evening, or during
sunshine after a shower, when great numbers of
the rabbits venture from their burrows.
SNIPE SHOOTING. 125
SNIPE SHOOTING.
There are three kinds of snipes, viz. the solitary
or double snipe, the full or whole snipe, and the
jack or half snipe. The last is considered to be
scarcely worth powder and shot; it is the full
snipe which principally engages the shooter's at-
tention.
Snipes, like woodcocks, are migratory ; but some
few remain on our marshes, and in the neighbour-
hood of fresh water-springs during the summer
months. Those that have not been summer-so-
journers in this country begin to make their appear-
ance in October. In the inland counties they are,
like woodcocks, first seen on the moors. They are
most plentiful in the month of November, when
they are to be found in the valleys and on the
marshes. December is also a prime month. They
will be found in January until the frost breaks up.
Upon the breaking up of the frost in January or
February, they congregate in great numbers, on
126 SHOOTING.
the moors and downs, when they can seldom be
approached by the shooter. The snipes that re-
main during summer rear their young on our
marshes. The season for snipe shooting is not de-
fined or limited by any legislative enactment ; but
it is unsportsmanlike to shoot snipes between Feb-
ruary and the 12th of August.
The jack-snipe makes its appearance contem-
poraneously with the woodcock, except that it is
not seen in March. It is so diminutive a bird as
to be scarcely worth the sportsman^s notice. It
may afford sport to the tyro, and the shooting at it
will teach him how to bring down the large snipe,
for its flight is nearly similar, but much slower.
The common or full snipe is a shy bird when in
company, but when alone will allow the shooter to
approach within a dozen paces of it before it springs.
When it does spring, however, it moves with a
velocity that defies the epithet slow ! We find it
best to shoot as soon as possible. The shooter will
bring down a snipe with much less difficulty at
from fifteen to twenty paces than at any other dis-
tance. The aim is thus taken just before the bird
begins to make its cross flights, but before it has
attained its full speed. The irregularity of its
flight is of little consequence during the first and
second twirling, before the bird is safely on the
wing, since its flight is then comparatively tardy.
But let the snipe fly ten yards from whence it
sprang let it be, for instance, twenty-five paces
distant from the gun, it is then at the top of its
speed, and in the very midst of its sidelong, ellip-
SNIPE SHOOTING. 127
tical gyrations, and more than a match for the
majority of shooters, especially if the day be windy.
A snipe killed at fifteen or twenty paces distance,
with No. 7. shot, will seldom be struck by many
pellets, being generally three or four inches from
the centre of the cone which the shot forms as
it flies, which is very different from being in the
exact centre. A section of the body of a snipe
does not present a surface as large as that of
a penny-piece. If any person will fire at a target
at fifteen yards distance, he will find that a snipe
would not be cut to pieces even at that distance,
unless it chanced to be precisely in the centre of
the charge as thrown. When speaking of a snipe
presenting no larger a surface as a mark than a
penny-piece, we, of course, mean a snipe flying
directly from the shooter. It would be imprudent
to shoot at a snipe flying across at less than twenty
paces distance, as it then presents more than double
the surface of one going straight from the shooter.
Twenty-five paces is the distance we should prefer
for a cross or oblique shot. At thirty, or even at
twenty-five yards, unless the barrel throws shot re-
markably close, there are interstices in the charge
as thrown in which a snipe flying direct from the
gun would escape untouched. Provided the flight of
a snipe were equally steady at all distances, and that
in every instance the shooter could choose his own
distance, a snipe would have least chance for its
life at twenty yards. But there are two points to
be attended to in determining the proper distance :
the flight of the bird and the manner in which
128 SHOOTING.
the shot is thrown. In snipe-shooting the latter is
subservient to the former.
The common snipe occasionally found on heathery
and rush-clad hills, as well as in the enclosed grounds,
is the same as the gregarious bird of the marsh.
The setter is the best dog for snipe shooting.
WOODCOCK SHOOTING.
Cocks arrive in England in October, and leave
in March. They are to be met with in abundance
in covers near the sea-coast in October ; towards
the end of that month they are frequently found
on moors and downs ; and in the woods in Novem-
ber, December, and January. November is the
prime month. They are rarely to be seen far
from the sea in February. In March they will
again be found in some of the inland covers, but
not so plentiful as in November. Cocks remain a
very short time in the inland covers in March,
ere they leave them for the coast, preparatory to
their departure from British shores to their sum-
WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 129
mer haunts, the Norwegian woods or marshes.
Their movements are very uncertain, as are those
of snipes, their arrival and disappearance being
sometimes equally sudden. Changes of the weather
and the moon influence their movements.
There is a proverb current among sportsmen,
that to kill a woodcock is to perform a day's work,
which doubtlessly originated in the circumstance
of a woodcock being seldom found until a very
large extent of- wood has been closely beaten. In
the month of November, however, when wood-
cocks are most abundant, it would not be a diffi-
cult task, according to that standard of labour, to
do the work of a week in a day, in any noted
cover, for every cover frequented by cocks acquires
a notoriety which it seldom loses, since any wood
well frequented with cocks one year, has generally
a fair supply the next. But whether the same
cocks that frequent a wood this year, return the
next, with their offspring, or whether an entirely
new set of occupants take possession, we leave the
ornithologist to decide. A certain description of
woods are seldom known to fail of woodcocks dur-
ing the winter months ; these woods or plantations
are such as are swampy, or have a stream of water
running through them, or woods abounding in
springs, or where, from the nature of the ground,
or want of draining, the top water encourages the
growth of moss. The woodcock is rarely found in
woods where moss is not abundant. During a
frost, cocks are found near fresh water springs ; at
other times, , they are most commonly flushed in
130 SHOOTING.
the open glades of the densest woods, or rather in
those parts of the woods not choked up at the
bottom with fern, rushes, or brambles, but where
they can freely run about, and in those parts where
willows, oziers, hazel-trees, or crate-wood is plenti-
ful. In such places it will readily be ascertained
whether there are cocks or not, by the borings in
the moss or dead leaves, and by the chalkings. A
cock will often be found near its feeding place,
after a dark night.
A cock will seldom fly far until it has been
fired at several times : it should, therefore, when
practicable, be marked down. By a judicious
system of marking, many successive shots may be
obtained at the same bird. It is seldom that the
skilful shooter flushes a cock, which, with the aid
of markers, he does not eventually kill. The diffi-
culty of woodcock shooting arises, for the most
part, from the birds being flushed in the thickest
part of woods, and contriving to wing their flight
through the trees in such a manner as to baffle the
sportsman's aim. After being fired at in a wood,
cocks will frequently alight amongst hedge-rows
on the outskirts, especially under a hedge running
close to and parallel with a water-course, when
they are easily killed, as they will not rise until
the shooter is close upon them ; and their flight is
not difficult to master when there are no trees to
obstruct the aim.
A shooter of the south of England, who has not
opportunities of grouse-shooting, deems cock-shoot-
ing the perfection of his art; but he considers
WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 131
himself more than repaid for his toil, if he bag a
a couple or two. Combined with pheasant and
blackcock shooting, it is glorious sport.
As cocks are birds of passage, and their tarriance
in our covers is of uncertain duration, permission to
shoot them is often given to persons whose honour
can be depended upon not to kill pheasants. To
any but a real sportsman this is a tantalizing em-
ployment ; the pheasants rise before him every
fifty yards, and he may perhaps not meet with
more than a couple of cocks in a day.
Spaniels are the best dogs for this sport : they
give tongue when close upon game, and so allow
the shooter notice, in a situation where he could
not see a pointer or setter.
Formerly any one who was an adept at bringing
down a woodcock, was certain of the enjoyment of a
considerable local reputation as a shot, and he de-
served it. Place one of their long, heavy, single-
barrelled pieces, furnished with an ancient lock,
flint of course, in the hands of a modern shooter,
let him charge with powder similar to that used in
the early days of George the Third, and take his
chance in a tangled brake, where the cock can
make play among the branches for its life, and he
will readily believe that killing a cock in those
days was a real trial of skill. A short light de-
tonator is thrown upon the bird, the trigger is
drawn, and the shot reaches the mark in an instant ;
so speedy is the whole process, that it is scarcely
necessary to make any allowance for the motion
of the object, when attempting snap shots at short
132 SHOOTING.
distances ; but, with the fowling-piece and am-
munition of the period we are speaking of, it was
necessary to take aim half a yard above or before
the object moving, for a bird would fly that dis-
tance at least, after the trigger was drawn, and
before the shot reached it ; or if it made a sudden
turn, the. shot swept past it, as a clumsy over-
reaching greyhound will pass a hare as she turns.
Besides the less chance of killing with one of those
long heavy guns, the shooter would not fire half so
often as with a light one ; so much more time
being necessary to bring up the piece and to cal-
culate the requisite allowance, the bird would gene-
rally be behind the next tree before the gun would
be at the shoulder. Such was the slowness of
ignition, that wild-fowl would take alarm at the
flash from the pan, and dive out of harass way ere
the shot reached the water. In all shooting, whether
in the open or in cover, a deal depends upon where
the shooter places himself, a knowledge of this
part of his art will enable him to obtain twice as
many fair shots as his uninitiated companion.
When shooting in high covers, the sportsman
should push on hastily through those parts where,
though very likely for game, he cannot command
a view of it should it rise ; but whenever he comes
to a glade that commands a view in several direc-
tions, he should wait some time while his dogs beat
around him, and his companions, buried in brambles
and brushwood, pass him. It is often advisable to
follow a footpath in a wood, particularly where
ground shots are expected.
GROUSE SHOOTING. 133
RED GROUSE SHOOTING.
In comparison with grouse shooting* and deer
stalking, all the other sports of this country are
mere play. Never since the days of
Nimrod the founder
Of empire and chase,
Who made the woods wonder,
And quake for their race,*
has any sport been followed that requires greater
personal exertion. Grouse shooting is the sport
of all others exclusively British ; the partridge,
the pheasant, the black-cock, are widely dispersed
over other countries, but the red grouse is only
found on the British Islands.
Many causes contribute to the popularity of
grouse shooting, amongst which may be enumerated
the following. It commences during the parlia-
mentary recess, and long vacation, -the legislator's,
lawyer's, and collegian's holiday ; and it is no won-
der that, after being cooped up all summer, these,
or any other classes of society, should seek relaxa-
tion in the sports of the field. August is the
season when every one, from the peer to the shop-
keeper, who can afford the indulgence, either rusti-
cates or travels. In that month the casual tourist,
the laker, and the angler, are often in the North,
when the temptation to draw a trigger is irresist-
ible. Grouse shooting fascinates the young shooter
more than any other kind of sport, inasmuch as
the season commences with it. Partridge shooting
* Byron.
134 SHOOTING.
is a comparatively tame and uninteresting amuse-
ment. To the majority of sportsmen a grouse
shooting excursion only occurs once a-year, and
then lasts only a few days ; the sport, therefore,
seldom palls, but during the long interval of time
that elapses between each, the coming season is
ever looked forward to with additional interest.
Grouse shooting is, in many respects, a source of
greater expenditure to the sportsman, it requires
more preparation, and is attended with more diffi-
culties than any other kind of shooting ; but these
circumstances, so far from detracting from, pro-
bably serve to enhance the enjoyment of the sport,
for we are apt to estimate whatever is obtained
with difficulty and expense at a higher rate than
what is gratuitously afforded us.
It is not uncommon for an accomplished sports-
man to bag fifty brace on the 12th of August, on
preserved grounds. What may be termed a good
day^s sport differs much on different moors ; on
well preserved moors the average may be from
ten to twenty brace ; on subscription moors the
shooter should not be dissatisfied if he has the
opportunity of killing from three to five brace per
day during the first week of the season, though
this would be deemed a low average on the Scottish
mountains.
The grouse shooter should be long in training
before the season, so as to be able to master his
ground, and carry his gun without much personal
inconvenience. He should ride or drive to and
from the shooting ground, for if he is unable to
GROUSE SHOOTING. 135
undergo the labour comfortably, and the labour
required is excessive, he will by no means feel at
home on the moors, and the pleasure to be derived
from the sport will but ill compensate for the
fatigue. It is much more difficult to walk over
heather than they who have not tried it imagine.
There is an elasticity and spring in it that is ex-
tremely harassing and wearisome to the feet, being
somewhat like walking on sand or snow. Shooters
who boast of their acquaintance with London gun
makers, and who talk of their feats in the shooting
galleries, and of having slain pigeons at Battersea,
and pheasants in my Lord Battue^s preserves, are
often wofully disappointed on their arrival in the
North. It may not be out of place to enumerate
some of the causes of their disappointment, all of
which cannot be provided against, but the mention
of them may put the stranger on his guard, and
he will do well to provide against such of them as
he may think will else inconvenience himself.
He is out of training and cannot walk. His equip-
ment is incomplete. His pivots are choked up.
His caps will not fit. His wadding and cartridges
are cut for a gun of very different guage. His dogs,
never having seen any other winged game than par-
tridges and pheasants, will not point grouse ; they
are wild, not being any longer under the eye of
the keeper ; one of them scours the country half
a mile in advance, and the other will not suffer a
bird that can be put up to remain on the ground ;
on being thrashed, one of them turns sulky, and
the other dashes away full cry after sheep. Birds
136 SHOOTING.
are wild, and the shooter has no shot larger than
No. 5. His shoes are thin, and cling to his feet
like so much whit-leather. It is excessively hot,
he is overladen with shot, and his Indian-rubber
gaiters will not absorb the perspiration nor suffer
it to evaporate ; his stockings are consequently
soaked with wet. His hat is heavy, it will neither
resist wet nor is it ventilated. He is, when the
sun shines, half roasted, and when clouded, half
starved ; or he is lightly clothed, and caught in a
thunder shower. He wears thin stockings, and is
foot-sore. He is lost in the mist, for want of a
guide, a pocket compass, or a previous intimate
knowledge of the localities, and inadvertently be-
comes a trespasser, when a glorious row ensues,
ending, perhaps, in a struggle for the encroacher's
fowling-piece ! The beau-ideal of a sportsman, as
regards dress is, oftentimes carefully studied, the
new comer is inevitably marked by some absurdity
in this way, but his tout ensemble is soon metamor-
phosed amongst bogs, berries, and peat-holes, and
he is too late made aware that he ought to have
bestowed a thought on his comfort and convenience,
rather than on his dress. If he does not tire him-
self by walking beyond his strength, probably over
useless tracts, in the early morning, he most effec-
tually accomplishes that object in the hot sun at
noon, and is not only rendered incapable of follow-
ing up the sport in the afternoon, but he feels ex-
hausted the next morning.
A catalogue of some of the articles which form
the grouse shooter's equipment may not be unser-
GROUSE SHOOTING. 137
viceable. Dogs; fowling-piece, in case or bag; two
extra pivots; a, pivot pricker ; pivot wrench ; gun-rod
or cleaner ; a small bottle of olive oil; some linen
cloth and leather; safety powder-flask; dram-flask;
shot-belt; bird-bag; a canister of powder ; a quantity
of shot, various sizes ; wire-cartridges and case; a
few pairs of woollen stocJcings; strong laced boots, or
strong shoes and gaiters; a shooting cap, or very
light hat; copper-caps and box; wadding; screw-
turner; spring-cramp; a punch for cutting waddings;
shoe-oil; straps, collars, couples, and cords, for lead-
ing and tying up dogs; dog-whistle; dog-whip;
a pocket-knife; a pen-knife; a pocket-comb; some
cord or string for tying up game ; hampers in which
grouse may be packed between layers of heather ;
sealing-wax and seal to mark birds when sent by a
coach or carrier; game certificate; card of permis-
sion, or other authority to produce to the game-
keepers ; a pedometer; a &\m!h pocket-compass, which
is useful in a fog ; sandwiches, cigars, soda powders,
Prometheans, brandy; an achromatic telescope, to
view the scenery and the deer, may afford amuse-
ment in the Highlands. Half these things may
be dispensed with, it is for the shooter to judge
which of them he will require.
On the eleventh of August the sportsman arrives
at his shooting quarters, probably some isolated
tavern, " old as the hills," (if such a house as the
grouse shooter occasionally locates himself in, in
the northern or midland counties of England, or in
Scotland, where oat-cake and peat supply the place
of bread and fuel, can be called a tavern.) The
M
138 SHOOTING.
place, humble in character, has been the immemorial
resort of sportsmen in August, although, during
the rest of the year, sometimes many months elapse
ere a customer, save some itinerant salesman calling
for his mug of beer, " darkens the door." There he
will find all the keepers, and poachers, and young
men from the country round assembled, amounting
in the whole to not more than some eight or ten
persons, each anxious to display his knowledge of
the number and localities of the broods, but each
differing, wide as the poles asunder, in his state-
ment, except on four points, on which all agree,
viz. that the hatching season has been finer than
was ever known before! that the broods are larger
and more numerous than were ever counted before !
that the birds are heavier and stronger than were
ever seen before ! and that they will, on the fol-
lowing day, lie better, and afford more sport than
they ever did on any opening day before ! Each
successive season being, in their idea, more propi-
tious than its precursor !
Many are the topics discussed, and not the least
interesting is the question, at what time shall we
commence operations in the morning ? When the
guns are expected to be numerous, it is decided to
be on the ground as soon as it is light enough to
commence operations in a fair way. Birds may be
killed above the horizon long before sun-rise, but
the sportsman 1 s rule is never to fire until the morn-
ing is so far advanced that he can plainly distin-
guish them in their flight against the dark hill- side.
They arrange to breakfast at three, (calculating
GROUSE SHOOTING. 139
the time by their watches, and not by the house
clock, which may have a way of going peculiar to
itself,) and to be on the ground before four, as the
greatest number of birds are killed between four
and six, and when there are many contesting for
the prize it is folly to throw away a chance. If
the moor is strictly preserved, and no guns are
expected but their own, they determine not to dis-
turb the birds until seven or eight, since birds lie
better during the day when not disturbed early in
the morning.* This question being disposed of,
* " Hunting for grouse during the basking hour of the day is
rigidly prohibited by all gentlemen who compile sporting directories,
and yet every shooter knows that at those proscribed hours himself
is commonly on the moors. Morning and evening, when the birds
are on foot in search of food, is undoubtedly preferable to the duller
portion of the day, when they are accustomed to indulge in a siesta,
but generally some considerable distance must be travelled before
the sportsman can reach his beat from his quarters, the morning is
consumed on horseback or in the shooting cart, the same road must
be again accomplished before night, and hence the middle of the day
is necessarily the portion devoted to pursuit of game.
" To find the birds, when, satisfied with food, they leave the moor
to bask in some favourite haunt, requires both patience and experi-
ence, and here the mountain-bred sportsman proves his superiority
over the less practised shooter. The packs then lie closely, and oc-
cupy a small surface on some sunny brow or sheltered hollow. The
best nosed dogs will pass within a few yards and not acknowledge
them ; and patient hunting, with every advantage of the wind, must
be employed to enable the sportsman to find grouse at this dull hour.
" But if close and judicious hunting be necessary, the places to be
beaten are comparatively few, and the sportsman's eye readily detects
the spot where the pack is sure to be discovered. He leaves the
open feeding grounds for heathery knowes and sheltered valleys;
and while the uninitiated wearies his dogs in vain over the hill-side,
where the birds, hours before, might have been expected, the older
sportsman profits by his experience, and seldom fails in discovering
the dell or hillock, where, in fancied security, the indolent pack is
reposing." Wild Sports of the West.
140 SHOOTING.
enquiry is made whether the dogs have been fed ;
and the shooters who intend killing their full com-
plement of birds retire before eleven, (a late hour,
by the bye, in the vicinity of a moor,) lest they
should not feel as they could wish in the morning ;
and this is the more necessary if they be not
members of a Temperance Society. Every bed is
speedily occupied, and the retainers lie on sofas,
elbow-chairs, or whatever else presents itself; but
how often it happens that the god of slumber is in-
voked in vain !
Morning dawns the morning of the Twelfth
and " heavily with mists comes on the day." The
occupiers of benches and chairs are first on the
alert the landlady is called breakfast is pre-
pared the dogs are looked at all is tumult,
noise, and confusion reckless must he be that can
rest longer in bed " the cootie moorcocks crousely
craw,"" little fearing that many a bold mountaineer
amongst them must, ere night, be
Whistled down with a slug in his wing !
The dram-flasks are filled the sandwiches cut
some provision is made for the dogs the shot-
belts are buckled on a multitude of other matters
are arranged and orders given. Next is heard the
howling and yelping of dogs the cracking of whips
the snapping of locks the charging, and flash-
ing and firing of guns* and every other note of
* It may seem unsportsmanlike to flash off, and charge, before
arriving at the shooting ground, but we deem it an act of prudence.
Out of a dozen guns, some of which have not been used all summer,
GROUSE SHOOTING.
preparation ! The march is sounded, and away
they wend an emulous band, each endeavouring
to eclipse the other in the number and size of birds
killed. On that day there is an universal scramble
for game ; almost every person who carries a gun
then strives to fill his bird-bag, to the exclusion of
every other object regardless for a while of com-
panionship, or personal comfort, or of the " savage
grandeur" of the scene before him, and indifferent
whether an undeviating level bound his view, or
whether
Lakes and mountains around him gleam misty and wide !
It is not until after-days of leisure, and when a
series of trivial adventures, or recollections of past
doings, have made several sites classical, if we may
be allowed the term, that the stranger-sportsman
becomes enamoured of the wilds, and shares the
feelings of the native hillsman, who bears the same
love to his mountain-home and mountain-sports,
as the Switzer does to his.
We were evidently drawing on our imagination
for an ideal sportsman when we penned the follow-
ing in the Oakleigh Shooting Code ; for no such
determined and enthusiastic real one as is therein
described have we ever seen or heard of. " To the
shooter in training, full of health and strength, and
well-appointed, it is of little consequence whether
game be abundant or not. The inspiriting cha-
<T>
and others which have been carelessly cleaned, the probability is,
that one or two cannot be let off until a quarter of an hour has been
spent in firing caps and clearing out the pivots.
142 SHOOTING.
racier of the pursuit, and the wild beauty of the
scenery, so different from what he is elsewhere in
the habit of contemplating, hold out a charm that
dispels fatigue ! He feels not the drudgery ! To
him the hills are lovely under every aspect ; whether
beneath a hot autumnal sun, with not a cloud to
intercept the torrid beam, or beneath the dark
canopy of thunder-clouds whether in the frosty
morn or in the dewy eve whether wjien through
the clear atmosphere he surveys, as it were in a
map, the counties that lie stretched around and
beneath him, or when he wanders darkly on, amidst
the volumy vapour the Ossianic mist that rolls
continuously past him ! The sun shines brightlier,
and the storms rage more furiously than in the
valleys ! The very sterility pleases : and to him
who has been brought thither by the rapid means
of travelling now adopted, from some bustling
mart of trade, or vortex of fashion, the novelty of
lonesomeness is agreeably exciting ! The stillness
that reigns around is as new to him as the solidity
of land to the stranded sailor ! Scarcely is there
a change of scene ; silence and solitude hill and
ravine sky arid heather universally prevail ! the
outline is everywhere bold and where the view
terminates amidst rocks and crags, frequently sub-
lime ! His noon-day bivouac may be in some
quiet dell shut out from the world ; or near some
rocky summit, perchance on the boundary of the
muir-lands, whence, on the one hand, he beholds an
unbounded expanse of heathery hills, by no means
monotonous if he looks at it with the eye of a
GROUSE SHOOTING. 143
painter, for there is every shade of yellow, green,
brown, and purple; the last is the prevailing
colour at this season, the heather being in bloom ;
nor are the hills monotonous if he looks at them
with the eye of a sportsman, for, by this time, he
will have performed many feats, or at any rate
will have met with several adventures, and the
ground before him is the field of his fame ; he now
views with interest many a rock, cliff, and hill,
which lately appeared but one of so many " crags,
knolls, and mounds confusedly hurled;" he con-
templates the site of his achievements as a general
surveys a field of battle during an interval from
strife ; the experience of the morning has taught
him a lesson, and he plans a fresh campaign for
the afternoon, or the morrow, or probably for the
next season, should the same hills be again destined
to be the scene of his exploits : and, on the other
hand, he looks down, and, in bright relief, sees the
far-off meadows, and hamlets, the woods, the river,
and the lake ! He rises, and renews his task.
The invigorating influence of the bracing wind on
the heights, lends him additional strength he
puts forth every effort every nerve is strained
he feels an artificial glow after nature is exhausted
and returns to the cot where he had previously
spent a sleepless night, to enjoy his glass of grog,
and such a snooze as the toil-worn citizen never
knew!"
Grouse are hatched in April, or very early in
May. If there be much rain in April or May,
the broods will be small. If an early spring be
J44
SHOOTING.
followed by a hot summer, the birds will be large,
and strong on the wing, at the commencement of
the shooting season. If the summer be very dry,
the young birds will be strong on the wing, by
reason of their having to make long flights to pro-
cure water.
After the early part of the season, grouse seldom
rise within shot in wet weather. They do not
always lie well immediately on the clearing up of
the weather, but require a succession of fine days.
Grouse shooters should separate and range singly,
they should have no noisy attendants, nor any
dogs that require rating. The sport cannot be
carried on too quietly. If the shooter throws off
before eight o^clock, which it is not prudent to do
unless there are many guns on the moors, or foul
weather is expected in the afternoon, he should
run only one dog as long as the heather is wet, after-
wards two, and in the afternoon three dogs. In
wet weather one dog is quite sufficient. If hot
weather, we advise rest from eleven to two. If
the shooter have not exhausted himself during the
middle of the day, he will best fill his bag in the
afternoon ; he may not, indeed, then find so many,
but those he does find will be dispersed birds that
will almost lie to be trodden on. An old shooter
thus, on a dry afternoon following a wet morning,
will sometimes load himself or his attendant, after
the less experienced have left the moor disgusted,
with scarcely a bird in their possession.
The flight of grouse is generally about half a
mile. A grouse will drop suddenly, when out of
GROUSE SHOOTING. 145
sight of the shooter, on some hill side, perhaps
forty or fifty yards from the highest part. Nine
times out of ten the grouse alights on a hill side
slanting from the shooter, or, in other words, on
that side of the hill, or ridge, or sloping ground,
which is farthest from the shooter. It is useless to
attempt to range the whole of a moor, the sports-
man's time will be much better occupied in travers-
ing the same ground over again and again, assuming
he knew how to choose his ground. When rang-
ing a moor with which he is totally unacquainted,
the best thing he can do is to walk along the brow
F or side of a hill, (for nearly all moors are either
mountainous, or broken uneven ground,) keeping
about forty or fifty yards from the summit of any
rising ground : not only broods but single birds
alight more frequently in such a situation than
in any other, especially after being disturbed.
Much time is lost in ranging flats and the extreme
heights of hills and ridges. The side, under the
wind, of these lesser hills, which on nearly all
moors is intersected by rivulets, and which has a
pretty good covering of young heather, is the very
best line of range that can be recommended, care
being taken to keep within fifty yards from where
the declivity commences. By winding round the
hills in this manner, the shooter does not fatigue
himself near so much as by continually crossing
the ravines and climbing directly up the hills.
When the grouse-shooter throws off on an ex-
tensive moor, on which, or on the moors adjoining,
there are numerous parties of shooters, we would
146 SHOOTING.
direct him, whenever the wind is high, to make
for the leeward side of the moor. Grouse do not
fly with the wind on all occasions, but whenever
they happen to do so, their nights are longer than
when they face it ; and, w r hen going across wind,
their flight has ever a tendency to the lee side.
Thus, when every brood has been flushed several
times, the windward side of the moors becomes
deserted, and the leeward side the resort of both
game and shooters. Whatsoever species of game
he is in pursuit of, the shooter will do well to keep
on that side of the hill which is protected from the
wind. The most unlikely place in the world to
find any kind of game is a hill-side on which the
wind plays. But in stormy weather the hill-top
and the plain should be equally shunned, a nar-
row valley, or the steep hill-side sheltered from the
wind, are then the usual places of resort.
The favourite haunts of grouse, when undis-
turbed, are those patches of ground where the
young heather is most luxuriant. They avoid
rocks, and bare places where the heather has been
recently burnt ; at any rate they are not to be
approached in such places. It is in young heather
that grouse most frequently feed. They are sel-
dom found in the very long thick heather that
clothes some part of the hills, until driven there
for shelter by shooters or others. It is early in
the morning and towards evening that grouse are
to be found in young heather. During the middle
of the day the shooter should range the sunny side
of the hill, and avoid plains.
GROUSE SHOOTING. 147
Grouse do not always rise in the same manner.
They either mount, like pheasants, about five yards
high, and then fly off; or else they skim along
quietly, almost touching the ground. When the
grouse flies low, its flight is somewhat like that
of the blackbird. When it rises in the manner of a
pheasant, the best time to fire at it is immediately
as it arrives at its height, just as it is about to
make off ; at that point of time when it has per-
formed its vertical and is commencing its horizontal
flight. To shoot sooner, unless the aim be taken
above the bird, is to lose a chance. But, when the
grouse scarcely rises out of the heather, and glides
away from the shooter, as a blackbird flies, no
time is to be lost, or it will be out of reach. It is
generally when the shooter is near birds as they
rise, that they mount like pheasants ; and when
he is at a distance from them as they rise, that
they fly off low. When they rise perpendicularly,
they make some noise with their wings, and the
cock sometimes crows, and the hen cackles. On the
contrary, when they flit away, scarcely clearing the
heath-peeps, they make no noise whatever. When
grouse are wild and fly low, it is quite requisite to
keep a constant look-out, or they will gain a dozen
yards before they are seen ! Their being the same
colour as the heather favours their escape.
It is usual for one party of sportsmen to give
another party notice of the approach of birds by
crying "mark!" The shooters whom the birds
approach stand still, and the birds will not veer
from their intended course ; the birds are suffered
148 SHOOTING.
to pass before a gun is brought to the shoulder.
It is difficult to drop a bird approaching.
As the sportsman, in grouse shooting, has an
opportunity of choosing his own distance when
birds rise near to him, he will be more certain of
killing if he let the birds fly twenty-five yards
from him before he fires the first barrel, when if
he have both barrels cocked, he will have ample
time to throw in the reserve barrel while the birds
are within reasonable distance. In nothing is the
superiority of the detonating over the flint lock
more apparent than in its allowing the shooter to
fire the second so soon after the first barrel. We
suspect that the habit of taking the gun from the
shoulder after the first barrel was fired, originated
in the necessity of waiting until the smoke from
the pan was blown away, which nuisance no longer
exists. A person who is a decidedly bad shot
should not use the cartridge in the first barrel, as
the loose charge gives a larger circle at a short
distance, and consequently increases the chance of
killing.
No species of shooting requires the aid of good
dogs more than grouse shooting, and in no sport
does so much annoyance result from the use of bad
ones. The best dog, perhaps, for the moors, is a
well bred pointer, not more than five years old,
which has been well tutored, young in years, but
a veteran in experience. The setter is occasionally
used with success, but we prefer the pointer. The
latter has unquestionably the advantage when the
moors are dry, as it not unfrequently happens
GROUSE SHOOTING. 149
that they are, in August. If a setter cannot
find water wherein to wet his feet every half
hour, he will not be able to undergo much fa-
tigue. Some sportsmen will hunt a couple of
mute spaniels for grouse shooting in preference
to any other team of dogs. Of course, when this
method is pursued, the birds are never pointed,
and the shooter must ever be on the look-out, for
the game is generally sprung very near to the gun.
We are not quite sure that a sportsman can be
better dogged for grouse shooting than with a couple
of spaniels and an old staunch pointer, unless he is
a very dilatory shot, or is startled when birds rise
unexpectedly, and requires every bird to be pointed.
It is the power to bring down in good style bird
after bird thus put up, that makes apparent the
difference between the good shot and the indifferent
one. As long as birds are pointed under the dog^s
nose, the distinction is not so marked.
Perhaps the best team of dogs for showing off
sport on a fine day, would be three high-couraged
pointers that range independently before the shooter
in concentric semi-circles, the one within the other,
two of them should be close-beaters, bitches, per-
haps, might be preferred, and the third a high-
ranger ; the bitches should keep, as near as may
be, at the distance of ten and twenty paces respect-
ively of the gun, and the dog at thirty yards.
With such dogs very little game would be passed
over.
If the grouse-shooter is encumbered with several
markers, one should accompany him; the rest
150 SHOOTING.
should be stationed in all directions on the hill
tops. It is the duty of a marker to watch the
birds while the shooter is engaged in re-loading,
and bagging his game. When birds are scarce, it
is no loss of time to follow a marked bird ; but
when plentiful, the shooter should not deviate from
the line he has chosen. When birds are abundant,
markers are a nuisance. When scarce, a marker
may be serviceable, provided a thorough-bred one
can be obtained some shepherd lad, whose profi-
ciency may be guessed at by the knowing cunning
which glitters in his eye when he is told that his
services are required. A youth of this description
will lie down when a bird rises, put up his hands
to his face, like the blinders of a waggon-horse,
and mark a bird down to an inch, a mile off!
These youths have an unaccommodating knack
of slipping wounded birds into their own proper
pockets unseen ; or of hiding them in peat-holes, so
that neither Turk, Tiger, nor Spaniard, the re-
trievers, can find them ! Retrievers are seldom
used in grouse -shooting ; nor are they often re-
quired, for a winged grouse does not run like a
partridge, but hides itself in the nearest patch of
heather, so that the shooter knows where to find
the bird to a few yards. Now and then, indeed,
an old cock will run, after being winged, much in
the same manner as he has been used to run before
the brood on the approach of danger.
However orderly the array of a covey however
tempting the opportunity the partridge-shooter
should not be induced to " rake" them. The
GROUSE SHOOTING. 151
grouse-shooter need not be so punctilious. The
following practicable method of obtaining such a
shot as will, in all probability, secure a plurality
of birds at each discharge, is from one of the
papers of " A Quartogenarian" in the Sporting
Magazine. As regards grouse-shooting, we think
the justification of the practice is fully made out,
when it is remembered that the writer is speak-
ing of a wet and windy day in November of
that season when grouse leave the high hill-tops
altogether, and resort to the braes, and broken
bases of the hills, whence, on the approach of the
shooter, they take flight long before he is within
range, and wing round the turns of the knolls or
rocks. He says, " In such cases the best way will
be to station yourself previously down wind, where
your dear-earned experience has led you to expect
them, and send a person, or persons, to take a
good circuit, and walk carefully through the lea
sides and sheltered beilds of the hills. The best
family shots are often to be thus obtained, and
under such circumstances are perfectly justifiable,
though in common shooting there is nothing I
more detest doing or seeing done, than to drop
more than one bird to a barrel, to avoid which the
outer birds should always be fired at. But here the
case is quite different ; always take the middle
birds, c Father, mother, and Suke, down with
them, the more the merrier,' and this is what I
term a family shot !"
The red grouse does not attain his full size and
plumage until he has moulted twice. There is an
152 SHOOTING.
obvious difference between the two year old birds
and the one, the latter are sometimes taken for
young birds, but they may be known by the under
beak being strong enough to support the weight of
the body. The belly of the cock grouse is nearly
black, each feather being tipped or barred with
white ; the white tips or bars are smaller on an
old bird than on a young one. The breast and
belly of the hen is a dark chocolate colour. Until
November or December, young grouse, black-game,
partridges, and pheasants, may be distinguished
from old ones by the lower beak not being strong
enough to bear the weight of their bodies. The
lower beak of an old partridge is strong enough to
sustain the weight of a brace of birds ; but a young
bird cannot be raised by the lower beak without
the lower beak bending under the weight. The
head of a buck hare is larger, and the neck and
ears are shorter than of a doe. Old hares may be
distinguished from full grown young hares by the
strength of their jaw-bones, or the closeness of the
knee joint of the fore-legs.
In the month of September, the broods of red
grouse begin to assemble together, and remain in
large companies until the end of the season. They
are then said to be packed. In a very hot and
forward season, they may sometimes be seen in
packs on the 1 2th of August, but that rarely oc-
curs. If a late season, and the birds are not much
disturbed, they will not pack until October. A
pack varies in number from twenty to two or three
hundred, or even more. When packed, the shooter
GROUSE SHOOTING. 153
can seldom approach within a hundred yards of
them without resorting to some artifice. A pack
must be stalked, rather than ranged for.
In winter, red grouse, as also black-game, may
be seen sitting in rows on walls and peat banks,
early in a morning ; when great numbers are killed
by poachers, especially when the ground is covered
with snow, at which time the keepers should be
doubled, and should be on the alert day and night.
Considerable expense is often incurred in watching
moors in August, while in December, January, and
February, the birds, when they most need protec-
tion, are left to take care of themselves. In the
winter months, grouse cannot be killed in large
quantities, so long as the weather remains open.
After a mild winter, there is generally an abundance
of grouse the next season a proof that their great
enemy is the poacher in the snow, and not the
sportsman in August ! *
* In the winter snows, grouse are killed in great numbers, while
sitting in rows on walls. When the weather is mild in January and
February, they pair, and are then as easily approached as partridges
in September. It is then that the keepers are least on the watch,
and then that the cottagers kill the greatest number of birds. It is
true that a market cannot then be found for them, but they are
deemed little inferior to fowls when boiled in the pot with a piece of
bacon.
154
SHOOTING.
BLACK-GAME SHOOTING.
Black-game shooting commences on the 20th of
August, at which time the birds will suffer the
shooter to approach much nearer to them than will
the red grouse ; indeed, from that day until Sep-
tember, they lie very well, and are very easily
killed, except an old cock, which is shy at all sea-
sons. After the young ones have moulted, they
become wilder than the red birds, on the open com-
mon. They may be easily approached in a wood,
where they are sprung and shot like pheasants.
They are not met with at any great altitude, but
confine themselves chiefly to the valleys, the lesser
hills, and the base of the loftier mountains. They
do not frequent the central parts of large wastes so
much as those parts bordering on inclosed lands or
woods. Red grouse recede where cultivation ad-
vances ; and they are consequently in a fair way
of being banished from England. As there is a
greater extent of ground congenial to black-game,
BLACK-GAME SHOOTING. 155
there is no reason to fear their extinction. Heath-
land planted with larch, is a favourite resort ; but
they prefer rushy ferny ground and glens of alder
and birch, on the buds of which they feed. It
might be difficult to introduce the red birds into
any county where they are not found at present ;
but wherever there is land slightly sprinkled with
ling, and partially planted with larch, birch, or
alder, and if in the vicinity of corn-fields so much
the better, black-game might be easily located.
They are very destructive to crops of grain. The
opening-day for black-game shooting should be the
1st of September. On the 20th of August, the
young birds are so indolent that they frequently
suffer the dogs to catch them, as they lie basking
separately ; and the shooter walks them up one by
one, so that when a brood is found, the probability
is that half the birds will be killed. But the great
evil is that the young cocks cannot be distinguished
from the hens, and they are shot indiscriminately.
The blackcock is like the pheasant, polygamous ;
therefore, wherever the hens are spared, the game
will increase. On the 1st of September, black-game
are not so forward, comparatively, as partridges ;
even that day would be full soon to commence
shooting them. They are yearly becoming more
abundant in the English plantations, and there
can be no more noble addition to the park, the
chase, or the forest, than the blackcock. In the
lower woodlands, therefore, they should remain
undisturbed until November, when the woodcocks
arrive. Were this attended to, there would be
splendid sport in that month, just when the phea-
156 SHOOTING.
sants and blackcocks have completed their moult,
and when they are in good condition, after glean-
ing the stubbles.
When the sportsman meets with black-game or
muir-fowl, as well as red-game or grouse, he may
distinguish the former, if old birds, by their supe-
rior size. He cannot but recognise the cock, which
is jet black, marked with white on the wings,
and is as large and heavy as an Essex pheasant.
He will distinguish the hen and poults from the
red grouse, by the length of their necks. In form
and appearance, when on the wing, black-game re-
semble wild ducks. They are longer birds than,
and not so plump as red grouse, which, in turn, are
not so plump as partridges. The plumage of a
young blackcock is nearly the colour of that of a
red grouse, until the moulting season, which is in
October, when he sloughs his brown coat for a suit
of sable. The gray-hen and the young blackcock
may be distinguished from the red grouse by the
under feathers of the tail being mottled brown ;
those of the latter are black, as in the ptarmigan.
Black-game are generally hatched in rushy fields,
near to an uninclosed moor or heathery plantation.
They visit stubble-fields, or rather corn-fields, for
corn is harvested late in those cold countries where
the hills are covered with their native brown;
whereas the red grouse is rarely known to quit the
open moor, unless driven thence by men, dogs, or
stress of weather. The red grouse feeds chiefly
amidst the heather. Black-game will often feed,
and sometimes (though rarely) the red grouse also,
CAPERCAILZIE SHOOTING. 157
like partridges, in stubbles : black-game are very
destructive to crops of grain. Red grouse do not
frequent woods. Their nests are generally found
in heather ; those of black-game in rushy fields or
plantations. The eggs of the former are often
taken by persons collecting plovers 1 eggs ; and as
they are easily found, the temptation to pilfer but
too often presents itself. A child may thus do
more mischief than the most accomplished poacher.
Loiterers at this season should be watched.
Blackcocks, during winter, associate together
aloof from the grey-hens and red-grouse. The
grey-hens also pack distinct from the cocks.
Red grouse are never found on moors, where
water does not lie within a convenient distance in
seasons of drought. Black-game seem to disregard
this inconvenience ; probably, being larger birds,
they can endure a longer flight in search of water.
Black-game are scattered over the whole of the
North of Europe. They are found, more or less
abundant, in all the Northern, in most of the Mid-
land, and in some of the Southern counties of Eng-
land. Red grouse are not met with further south
than Derbyshire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire. Both
abound in Scotland : and in Ireland they are more
plentiful than in England. The red grouse only
is met with in Wales.
Similar to the blackcock;, in many respects is the
capercailzie, or cock of the wood, once the native,
and now the denizen of the Highland forests. The
capercailzie cock weighs sixteen pounds. Speaking
158 SHOOTING.
of this bird, as it exists in Sweden, Mr. Lloyd says,*
" The favourite haunts of the capercali are exten-
sive fir woods ; in coppices or small cover he is
seldom or never found. The principal food of the
capercali, when in a state of nature, consists of the
leaves of the Scotch fir ; he very rarely, however,
feeds upon those of the spruces ; he also eats juniper
berries, cranberries, blaeberries, and other berries
common to the Northern forests ; and occasionally
also, in the winter time, the buds of the birch, &c.
The young capercali feed principally at first on
ants, worms, insects, &c."
It was the felling of the timber, aided, perhaps,
by the cross-bow, which is not ill-adapted to the
purpose, that exterminated this primeval habitant
of the old Caledonian forests. Some years since
an attempt was made to re-introduce this bird to
its ancient haunts in Scotland, but without success.
" It is a pity," continues Mr. Lloyd, " that at-
tempts are not made once more to introduce the
capercali into the United Kingdom, for, if the ex-
periment was undertaken with judgment, it would
most probably be attended with success ; the cli-
mate, soil &c. in Scotland, at least, not being very
dissimilar, in many respects, to the south of Sweden.
In Scotland, besides, independently of the natural
forests, there are now considerable tracks of land
planted with pines, from which trees, when the
ground is covered with snow, those birds obtain
* Field Sports of the North of Europe.
CAPERCAILZIE SHOOTING. 159
nearly the whole of their sustenance." Since he
wrote this, several brace of these birds have been
sent over from Sweden ; and, on the forest lands of
the Marquis of Breadalbane, the experiment of
localising them is now in the course of trial, and
we doubt not that the cock of the wood will be-
come permanently established in the Scottish High-
lands. It may be inferred that the same de-
scription of country (the heaths and forests being
on a more extended scale,) which suits black-game,
would likewise suit the capercailzie, since they oc-
casionally breed together, the product being a hy-
brid which does not perpetuate its species.
" In the forest," Mr. Lloyd observes, " the
capercali does not always present an easy mark ;
for, dipping down from the pines nearly to the
ground, as is frequently the case, they are often
out of distance before one can properly take aim.
No. 1 or 2 shot may answer very well, at short
range, to kill the hens ; but for the cocks, the
sportsman should be provided with much larger.
" Towards the commencement of, and during the
continuance of winter, the capercali are generally
in packs ; these, which are usually composed wholly
of cocks, (the hens keeping apart,) do not separate
until the approach of spring. These packs, which
are sometimes said to contain fifty or a hundred
birds, usually hold the sides of the numerous lakes
and morasses with which the Northern forests
abound ; and to stalk the same in the winter-time
with a good rifle is no ignoble amusement."
1 60 SHOOTING.
THE PTARMIGAN.
We have now for some time traversed, with the
reader, the highest hills that are covered with
heather, but there are heights beyond. The poet
says,
For Liberty ! go seek
Earth's highest rocks and ocean's deepest caves !
Go where the Eagle and the Sea-snake dwell ! *
It may be admissible in poetry to give the highest
cliffs to the king of birds, but zoology assigns a
lower elevation to the " eaglets birth-place ;" yes,
you may ascend above the aerie of the eagle, where
the croak of the raven is never heard, where the
fox and the weazel but seldom disturb the lonely
habitants. You may ascend until, in the glowing
language of Mr. Mudie,^ " you begin at last to feel
alone, severed entirely from the world of society, of
life, and of growth, and committed to the solitude of
the ancient hills and immeasurable sky. The snow
lies thick on the side of the summit, and even peers
over the top, defying the utmost efforts of solstitial
heat. There is no plant under your feet, save-
lichen on the rock, apparently as hard and as strong
as that to which it adheres it can hardly be said
to grow and moss in some crevice, undistinguish-
able from the dull and cold mud into which the
storms of many winters have abraded the granite.
* Rienzi, a Tragedy. (1st edit.) London.
t Tine Feathered Tribes of the British Islands. By Robert Mudie.
2d edition. 1835.
THE PTARMIGAN. 161
You are above the reach of all sound from the inha-
bited parts of the country." * * * " A few mottled
pebbles, or at least what appear to be such, each
about twice the size of your hand, lie at some
distance, where the decomposed rock, and the rudi-
ments of what may be called the most elevated
mountain vegetation, just begin to ruffle the surface.
By and by a cloud shadows the sun, the air blows
chill as November, and a few drops fall, freezing
or melting in their descent, you cannot well tell
which. The mottled pebbles begin to move ; you
throw a stone at them to shew that you can move
pebbles as well as the mountain. The stone hits
beyond them ; they run toward your feet, as
if claiming your protection ; they are birds,
ptarmigan, the uppermost tenants of the island,
whom not even winds, which could uproot forests,
and frosts, which could all but congeal mercury,
can drive from these their mountain haunts. It
has often been observed, that of all the human
inhabitants of the earth, the mountaineer, be his
mountain ever so barren, is the last to quit ; and
the same holds true of the mountain bird."
The same writer traces the different elevations
at which various species of game is found, beginning
with the pheasant, as the tenant of the lowermost
woods ; the partridge, of the plain ; the blackcock,
of the confines of cultivation ; the grouse, of the
lesser hills and mountain-side ; and the ptarmigan,
of the snow-crowned summits.
He also adds, " in these birds we trace a sort of
resemblance to the general colour of the places
1 62 SHOOTING,
which they inhabit, though we know not well the
cause of the colour in either case. The ptarmigan
is mossy rock in summer, hoar frost in autumn,
and snow in winter. Grouse are brown heather,
black-game are peat-bank and' shingle, and partridges
are clods and withered stalks all the year round."
And to continue the similitude, woodcocks are dead
leaves, the streaked snipe is the marsh-reed, the
pheasant is red fern, and the capercailzie is the
black branch of the pine.
We find the earliest birds of each kind in the
warmest valleys and on the richest land, the par-
tridge and blackcock of the South of England
arrive at full growth before those of the North.
Looking at the various birds of the game species
collectively, the order is reversed, the higher, the
colder the location to which they belong, the sooner
does each separate kind arrive at maturity. The
ptarmigan is ready for the table before the time
at which it may be legally shot, the twelfth of
August. Descending the hill, we find the red
grouse not three parts grown at that period. A
little lower, and the scarcely fledged blackcock rises
almost helpless, on the twentieth of August. Lower
still, on the fertile plain, the young partridge does
not assume his grey mantle and purple crescent
until long after the first of September. And in
the warm woods the pheasant does not don his
panoply of gold until the fall of the leaf.
Few are the sportsmen that climb the granite
cliffs amongst which ptarmigan are found, or wade
the winter snows in which those birds delight to
THE PTARMIGAN. 163
bury themselves. A ramble thither, is a journey
of curiosity or observation, rather than a sporting
excursion. It is a pilgrimage to the loftiest
Highland altitudes. The fowling-piece becomes
converted into the palmer's staff ; and the sports-
man merges in the adventurer, the enthusiast, the
worshipper of Nature !
THE END.
EDINBURGH : PRINTED BY T. CONSTABLE,
PRINTER TO HER MAJESTY.
BIRD-STUFFING
AND
FISHING TACKLE ESTABLISHMENTS,
64, PRINCE'S STREET, AND 4, INFIRMARY STREET,
EDINBURGH.
TAXIDERMIST TO THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM,
AND
FISHING TACKLE MAKER.
BEGS respectfully to announce, that he continues to im-
port from foreign countries, QUADRUPEDS, BIRDS, SILK-
WORM GUT, &c., and that he also manufactures every
description of Tackle for the equipment of the Angler.
The combination of these two branches of trade affords
him unequalled advantages in the manufacture of Artifi-
cial Flies, many of the skins of birds, rejected as unfit for
preservation, furnishing him with feathers of most brilliant
lustre for the piscatorial department of his business.
QUADRUPEDS, BIRDS, &c. STUFFED AND FITTED UP ON
THE MOST APPROVED MODERN METHODS.
IRISH AND OTHER FLIES DRESSED TO ANY PATTERN,
AND OF THE MOST CHOICE MATERIALS.
M'D. C. has now on hand Thirty Scotch, Golden, and
Sea Eagles, in skin and mounted, in all the varieties of
plumage which these birds assume, and at prices from
20s, upwards. Some of the specimens are of large size,
measuring, from tip to tip of the extended wings, upwards
of eight feet.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY
Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
RECO UP
OCT 27 1958
LD 21-95m-ll,'50(2877sl6)476
M314090
iiiiilliP
