Some people may have been shocked by the recent account here of the shooting of thrushes in France. And, by the way, the prescribed bag limit is, in one area, 15 thrushes per gun per day, in another, 20. The game shooting season ends shortly in these islands, but here is an account of fairly comprehensive slaughter in Scotland. We do not seem to see any more, in illustrated magazines, huge carpets of dead pheasants with the authors of their doom ranged, smiling over them. But shooting for the pot is one thing, while others make a ceremony out of gunmanship
Anyway, the higher dottiness seems to be with the landed gentry, as told in a recent Country Life, the English magazine. Jamie Douglas-Home tells how his father, William, on their estate in Lanarkshire, some 30 miles south of Glasgow, in one day shot, purposely, one (and sometimes more than one) of every species of game. On October 1st 1931, William, aged 19, set out with one of his father's under-keepers to, as he puts it, get "Everything in the Game Book" By 10 a.m. he had shot a teal and a woodcock "usually the trickiest species to acquire." Soon he had a pheasant and three partridge, and in a piece of wet land a mallard and a snipe fell to him. A flock of golden plover flew overhead. He hid behind a wall while the keeper drove the flock expertly towards him. Five of them were in the bag. Now he was on moorland proper. Soon he had three grouse, two rabbits and two hares. He needed only one blackcock and pigeon to fill his list. He enjoyed his packed lunch and then set out "on the long trek home."
All blackcock haunts were empty. Finally, after a seven mile walk he got "two old blackcock", in early evening. Rushing, now, not to be frustrated by "the humble pigeon", he did, in fact shoot one, and "Everything in the Gamebook" was logged. Even in recent years, he writes, the deed has narrowly missed more than once. All good eating, though that's hardly the point. On then, or back then to December 22nd 1876, when the young Douglas Hyde, nearly 17 years of age, recorded in his diary. "Snowy day . . . I went out shooting to the Currachs, Ballinphuill and the river. Shot a wild goose and a hare and six grey plovers, and a brace and a half of snipes a partridge and three lapwings and a waterhen. Good fare for the rectory. The goose weighted about seven pounds. This from The Young Douglas Hyde by Dominic Daly.