Part 24

Grouse like wettish ground, especially in hot weather, presuming that there is dry ground available for them to nest upon, and feed and sit upon in wet weather.

Now, by judicious surface draining, much may be done.

When the ground slopes from the low hills, the surface water works over the face of the ground, thoroughly soddening it, and rotting the heather that would otherwise grow.

The drains are simply small sheep drains cut on the surface, slantingly across the slope, wherever there is fall enough just to run the water.

The drain intercepts the water, runs it off, preventing it from running over the ground below the drain, and immediately dries the ground immediately below the drain. Heather grows some yards wide, and there the birds will sit and nest, and you have created increased grouse ground.

The expense, in view of the benefit is very trifling. A pair of drainers during the summer months, say a cost of £50, will get over a very large extent of ground.

The proprietor was constantly endeavouring to sell the property, in which event my lease would drop through, and he was impervious to any arrangements as to draining, otherwise I should have done the whole of the Dalnawillan ground. As it was, I did do some odd bits, at my own cost. One beat, near the lodge, I scored over with a few hundred yards of draining, and converted it from a bad to a good beat.

Such draining, of course, improves the ground for sheep as well as grouse.

I presume the time will come when proprietors will see that profit will accrue from cultivating their moors for the purpose of carrying grouse, by endeavouring in all ways to improve the heather by judicious burning and draining, in sufficient amounts to carry as large a stock as is reasonable for the extent of ground. I see no reason whatever, if you offer as favourable conditions to the birds, why they should not be as plentiful on ground A as on ground B; as a matter of fact they will be.

DOGS.

To some men (certainly it is so to me) one great element of the pleasure of walking shooting versus standing shooting, viz., the driving of grouse, partridge, and pheasant, is the working and use of dogs where they are useful and essential to success, in the particular sport for which they are used.

Do not let it be inferred that I am detracting from driving, or the skill and experience that is necessary to do it well, both in beaters and guns.

Each sport is delightful in its way and in its season.

The Yorkshire grouse cannot be brought to bag without driving, and so with partridges and pheasants in certain counties.

But I do feel more delight in hunting the game than in having the game hunted towards me.

I have always worked a perfect retriever broken by myself and kept to myself, a dog keen to his work, and who keeps by your side, not at heel, as he needs to see what is doing, if he is to help you to his uttermost, who keeps his nose on the alert, and tells you by a look when you are passing a close sitting partridge or rabbit or hare in its form, and who tells you if the partridge covey is still in front or run up the right or left furrows of the swedes, who stops with you until told to go, and then goes quietly back to where he saw the bird drop, and takes up the scent of the dead or running bird; not a dog who, when told to go rushes and tears about hoping to flush the winged bird into sight, or put up and chase some wretched rabbit, which is far more to his taste.

I have never done any good with pedigree dog-blood as shown on the show bench. Of course, on the show bench it is not pretended for one moment that any good is to accrue in a sporting sense; all is sacrificed to shape, size, and coat, which in a sporting dog get it if you can, but probably you have to do without some points if you get brains and keenness.

Napoleon, Wellington, and Gen. Sheridan were all small men, and their physique would not have commanded prizes on the show bench.

Again, for field trials dogs are bred up for that business only, and are rarely used for sporting.

At a field trial you want a bold pretentious dog that will go in and do just one or two things in a certain form, stand hares and rabbits, if he does it in proper form, and as to whether he is an industrious good worker, that is a matter of indifference. A really good dog, if a little shied by the crowd round him, will be quite out of the running in a field trial. I don't say but that some field trial dogs may possess high qualities that are useful as a cross in breeding.

I raise no objection to dog shows, they afford pleasure to numbers of people. What I desire is that the inexperienced sportsman shall not look in that direction for his sporting dogs.

Caithness birds, especially in catchy weather, run very much when pointed and drawn upon. Clearly, like a red-leg partridge, he tries his legs well before he will take to wing. Sometimes they will road over 100 yards or more, and it is an unexplained mystery to me how a brood will cross a burnt and bare patch in front of you as fast as you can comfortably walk, without showing themselves.

Old solitary cocks are terrible fellows for this, and if your dog does not foot them fast they will outwalk you, and ultimately rise wild.

One old brute pointed well fifty yards within the march, took me such a distance across the Dunbeath march that I began to be so thoroughly ashamed of my trespass, that when he did rise and drop to the shot, I felt half inclined to let him lie and come away.

To my mind working a brace of dogs is a mistake.

Rap, we will say, gets birds and Ben backs him; certainly a very pretty picture, if the dogs do it well.

The birds draw on, and Rap draws on, Ben remains behind, stands like a fool--the poetry of the picture is gone, perhaps he draws on in Rap's footsteps.

Besides if you want to work your dogs in pairs you will need double the number in the kennel, ay, and an extra dog breaker as well.