[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sra,—Those of your readers who know something about shooting must have been both amused and disgusted at the letter you publish on the subject of big shoots. It is evident that " H." is supremely ignorant of what he writes about.
Some of us like big shoots, some do not, but it is certain we are not likely to take part in many if we wound the game as " H." imagines we do. Unless a man is sufficiently skilful to kill, and kill dead, a large proportion of what he shoots at he will have no big days unless they are on his own shooting.
Big bags are not the main object, and anyhow they are not obtained by wounding the birds. Partridge-driving needs no excuse. It is, perhaps, the highest test of good shooting, and there is no better sport with the gun. How, I wonder, are partridges to be got unless driven ? The only way would be to mop up the poor things in thick cover during the first few days of September, when weak half-fledged and immature birds will sometimes lie close enough for a bag to be made.
There is no comparison between the skill and science required for successful driving and shooting at birds going away when walked up. Too often the shots are long ones, and many go away wounded and are not recovered. I have never been lucky enough to be invited to a moor where Lord — did not kill 1,800 grouse in a day, but if I were I should look up the record made by the late Lord Walsinglutm forty years ago, when he killed, I think, 1,056 grouse in a day—a marvellous exhibition of endurance and skill by a real good sportsman and most humane man. Only 1,510 cartridges were used, and the pick-up was only thirty-four head ! Not much wounding or firing into the brown here, or such a bag would be impossible.
Men who kill grouse properly never shoot at birds behind so long as others are coming, nor, indeed, is this done in any shooting of driven game. As for the tame wild duck which showed such contempt for " H.'s " skill with the gun, I don't think I should have cared much for the shot, unless it was a high one ; but such a humorous bird perhaps deserved a better fate than to have his neck wrung !
I advise " and others who think as he does, to read what the late A. Stuart-Wortley says on the subject in his well-known books in the " Fur and Feather " series. They will thus learn something which experience has not taught them.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Woodside Lodge, Aspley Guise. F. W. BERRY.
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