THOSE of my readers who have the patience to follow me this far may wonder why I have devoted this space to a comparison of British and American shooting. Having studied conditions for some time and noted the course of events, I believe that a better understanding of British shooting conditions would be of the utmost value to the sportsmen of this country; for unless radical changes are made in our methods of game protection and shooting rights, the time is rapidly approaching when most of us will have to lay away our guns for all time. This is not the place to go into a discussion on propagation, but there is a lot that we can learn about shooting such as is afforded in one of the most thickly populated sections of the civilized world, which might start us thinking in the right direction.
The average American sportsman has a very vague idea of the prevailing conditions which have such an important bearing on the sport in the British Isles, and because of his unfamiliarity with them gives British shooting very little consideration, believing it to be but the cold-blooded slaughter of half-tame birds.
While the Englishman is apt to hold our comparatively plebeian sport in contempt, due to his ignorance of the nature of the shooting afforded here, a fair comparison is most difficult because the shooting here and abroad is so entirely different—so much so that the only sameness lies in the fact that the object is to kill feathered game on the wing with a shotgun. The writer is in no way attempting to champion the British method, but would endeavor to give to it the credit due.
European shooting outside of the British Isles will not be considered—for whereas excellent sport may be had in Norway, parts of the Tyrol, Bohemia, and in the Caucasus, where the shooting is rough and more like our own—in no other part of Europe is shooting or the rearing of game carried to the high state of perfection that prevails in Great Britain.
There is no duck shooting to be had that in any way compares with even second-rate wild-fowl shooting as we know it in this country. Decoys are seldom used—and the shooting is done principally by floating down on large, unsuspecting flocks of sea ducks resting in open water, and firing a heavy charge into them from a swivel gun before they rise. This method—“Bushwhacking” as it was called here—used to be practiced on the Chesapeake by unprincipled market gunners, but was never countenanced by true sportsmen, and has been harshly put down by proper game legislation.
For shore-bird shooting the conditions are more favorable, as there is really fine shooting to be had in Ireland on the marshes for Wilson snipe and plover, where the shooting is done by walking up to the birds with the aid of dogs. And fine bags are often made of these most difficult and sporting birds, as the “old countryman” is remarkably proficient at this style of shooting. The birds, however, are seldom, if ever, found in the numbers that we encounter in the Mississippi Valley, or at some of the famous places along the Atlantic Coast.
Woodcock, which, by the way, is double the size of our native bird, is also found in fair numbers in Ireland—and some years in England, but is generally picked up in the course of the day’s shooting—and is seldom hunted for in particular, as it is not plentiful enough.
The principal shooting is at grouse, red legged partridges and pheasants, and these are raised in great quantities on the large estates where they are carefully preserved and fed until the open season permits their being shot.
In many cases the pheasants are hatched from incubators and raised in brooders, and not liberated until two or three weeks before the season opens. In some of the wilder sections of the country, particularly in Scotland, the grouse lie on the moors in their wild state, being afforded perfect protection from their natural enemies and the weather by the thick heather, but they are always carefully watched by the keepers to prevent poaching.
Of course, outside of the preserves there is quite a lot of good rough shooting to be had—the game being that which has drifted off of the large adjoining estates. Syndicates, as they are called, are formed by from four to a dozen sportsmen who purchase the rights from the farmers for their small shooting for the season, arranging to go there on certain specified days in the season to shoot what they can find. Often the rent is arranged at so much a head for the game bagged.
Naturally, under such conditions, the shooting is extremely expensive, and princely sums are often paid for the shooting privileges of one of the large estates for the season. Therefore but few can afford it but the wealthy, but everyone who can, strives to get out each year for a couple of days’ rabbit shooting in one place or another, and fine sport can be had, as the cottontails thrive in tremendous numbers from one end of the land to the other.
The season opens on the twelfth of August and closes on the twelfth of December, which speaks well for the methods of propagation, and in this respect we could well afford to take a lesson from the British sportsman. A day before this most important of dates to an Englishman, the railroad depots are full of sportsmen loaded down with shooting kits and guns, who are off for some estate to which they are so fortunate as to be invited by the thoughtful owner for a couple of days’ grouse shooting.
This is, indeed, often almost as great a pleasure to watch as it is to participate in. After an early breakfast at the Manor, the sportsmen assemble in their neat and stylish shooting togs and. mounted on ponies, start across the moor for the butts (or blinds, as we would call them), which are generally made of sod to be as inconspicuous as possible, and are situated so that the driven birds when flying over must pass within range of one of them. In each one of these mud castles the gamekeeper, who is in charge, leaves a shooter,—which are generally not more than six in number,—with plenty of ammunition, a pair of double-barreled guns and a gillie to load the spare one as he shoots the other. The rest of the equipment generally consists of a sandwich box and a flask of brandy, a mackintosh in case of rain, and a shooting chair. I have never seen a sunshade added to this, but would not be surprised if it was at times. Then the beaters, armed with staffs for thrashing the cover, and making a universal din, start towards the butts, driving everything before them. Soon the birds start coming over, first a few of the wildest in singles and pairs, and then in coveys of a dozen or more. It is then that the novice at the game will get his first lesson in respect for English shooting, and also for the gillie kneeling behind him with the extra gun, for despite the fact that his pieces are single-triggers and ejectors, he could not possibly load rapidly enough for himself to take advantage of all his opportunities.
Towards the middle of the day the party will gather together for luncheon, at which the ladies, if there, will drive out to meet them, and later in the day they will start for some other part of the moor, where other drives will be made. It is not at all exceptional for four or five guns to bag from four to six hundred brace of grouse in this way in a day’s shooting.
We Americans are apt to scoff at this kind of sport, as the idea of sitting in butt with a loader behind you to handle your guns, while a small army of beaters drive the birds over you, seems highly unsportsmanlike and nothing but a slaughter. And in a broad sense this is right, for the true sportsman gains far more pleasure from tramping the wild rough country, entirely responsible for his own actions and results, and from watching his dog’s work on the birds and sustaining all kinds of hardships for the sake of the sport, than he does from seeing the poor quarry grassed at the report of his gun. The Englishman would undoubtedly think the same under like conditions, but in his country they do not exist. The country is mostly thickly settled, and the section to be shot over in the course of the day small, so he makes the best of what he has. Perhaps he would rather get out in an old greasy hunting coat in place of his smart tweeds, but he isn’t living in a camp or tramping through swamp and briers—to the contrary, he is more often the guest at a large house-party surrounded with all the luxuries of culture and refinement, where many ladies are also present to witness the sport. He is just as capable of dispensing with the many little comforts that we laugh at as we are, but why should he attempt to make hardship where it does not exist? The Englishman is far too levelheaded to do so. Perhaps he would rather kill his birds over dogs as we do, and indeed he does in the Highlands, where the game and the country is wilder, but if he does, he really needs the gillie tagging along behind him, for so many birds are found that he could not comfortably carry all the shells that he would use in a day—much less the game. And also the driven birds are far harder to bag than they are over dogs in England or Scotland. Also the shooting has in most cases to be done on the restricted confines of one estate, where promiscuous shooting every day would soon make the birds so wild that they would scatter over the neighboring land. Walking them up makes them ever so much wilder than driving, which is also more difficult, and experiment shows that it is far better to shoot fewer times, and make larger bags at these shoots, than it is to continue hammering at them day after day, and being satisfied with smaller bags.
For the benefit of those who think that this shooting is a mere slaughter, let me say that if they were to try it they would meet with one of the biggest surprises of their lives. For I can imagine nothing harder than sitting in a butt late in the afternoon with the sun low in the west when the beaters start the grouse towards you. Skimming along low to the heather, following every undulation of the ground, of which they are almost the color, at 130 miles an hour they will tax the best efforts of an expert to the limit. Or again, standing on the edge of a tall woods on a pheasant drive, when the birds hold back until the close proximity of the beaters drives them forth into the open and they come out over the tops of the trees, rocketing up and over at high speed—it is no child’s play to hit them. And many an accomplished American sportsman who “has wiped the eye” of his bungling English guest day after day and shot after shot in the quail stubbles of the South, has hung his head in chagrin while watching this same man bring down his birds right and left using a pair of guns systematically.
And that is the whole thing in a nutshell. The English shooting is difficult, and though the birds are very often reared by hand, there is really nothing more difficult to connect with when they are driven. But the shooting is always the same, or nearly so. The first-class English shot shoots like our expert pigeon shots—with machine-like regularity. And as he has little field practice except at these shooting parties, where he must be at his best, he goes to shooting schools each year where, under the care of an expert, he is taught to take his shots correctly. It is not hunting as we know it, but just expert marksmanship.
As an illustration, Mr. R. H. Remington Wilson and Lord De Gray have been seen to have four birds dead in the air at one time. They are, of course, almost in a class by themselves, but it at least shows the perfection sometimes attained. Yet expert English shots will often show up very poorly in this country, where the personal element enters more fully into the game.
Almost any one can become a fairly good shot at driven game if he has any ability, and sticks to it, while without the natural qualifications one would never become a good field shot as we know it here. Tramping over rough country after ruffed grouse, or partridge—taking shots under all conditions, from all sorts of positions, where as much depends upon one’s ability as a hunter and his knowledge of the habits of the birds as upon his proficiency as a shot; where every one of the shots is taken under more unfavorable conditions than one would ever experience in England, and where the physical exertion is many times as great. It is this, together with privation and hardship, and many other things besides, including the freedom to roam and hunt where you choose, that puts the American sportsman and American shooting in a class by themselves.
Personally, I would rather start out through the New England hills with a good setter, slipping and sliding up and down hill over granite crags and through beech and chestnut in quest of the old ruffed grouse, or floundering through tamarack, alders and white birch on the bottoms, after the elusive little woodcock than to change places with II. R. H. the Duke of Anywhere for a record day at the “Abbey.”
Unfortunately our conditions cannot survive much longer. The despoiling of our forests; the drainage of lakes and marshes by thoughtless politicians; the cheap gun; the cheap automobile; moderate license fees; unrestricted shooting in the open season; together with the improvement in the roads, which makes the most out-of-the-way places easily accessible; and the enormous increase in the population—these things combined have sounded the death knell of the old-time free American shooting, and a generation or two will see it pass on forever. Natural propagation of the game birds and animals can no longer stand the terrific strain which has been imposed upon it. Many of the state legislatures, seeing the hand-writing upon the wall, have appropriated large sums for the acquisition of unclaimed lands to be used as public shooting grounds and game refuges, and these will stem the tide for a time. But can you imagine shooting upon one of these public preserves upon the opening day? The man who can afford it will either own a preserve of his own or an interest in one; the farmers will not tolerate the invasion of their property by increasing hordes each year.
And, consequently, unless the sole right to the game is invested in the property-owner, there will be no support for adequate game preservation.
No one will regret the passing of the old system more than I do, who have enjoyed some of the best sport that it afforded, but I realise that we will soon have restricted shooting or no shooting at all.