COUNTRY LIFE
THE " weapon-still-stand " is over; the guns travel to the ,rth ; and the grouse, roused from the heather, will stream , .:r the butts. Many good sportsmen feel that the birds are an unworthy game so driven as early as August 12th. Even a week later they have a better chance, and evoke a more satisfactory skill.
What is it steels the sportsman's heart?
It is his conscious pride of art.
And if the art is too early achieved the heart is not steeled and the zest not achieved. The Twelfth is the only opening day that is now celebrated by general acclaim. Nobody, so to say, shoots pheasants on October ist. Fewer people shoot partridges on "the First," and fewer still, when they might, shot duck on August 1st. All the close seasons, as we have just acknowledged in the case of the duck, end rather too soon, and, perhaps, begin usually rather too late. There is, I think, a fairly genethl agreement on this point with regard to all birds except the grouse ; but the arguments for including them, too, are strong.
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