Some years ago we tried the plan of placing one (or two) guns with the driving-line; but the experiment proved impracticable. Obviously only the coolest and most reliable men could be trusted in an essay which otherwise involved danger. Unfortunately--and it is but human nature--every one considers himself equally cool and reliable. Hence the breakdown and abandonment of the practice. For the long line of beaters, struggling at different points through obstacles of varying difficulty, necessarily loses precise formation; it becomes more or less broken and scattered. Here and there a man may get "stuck" and left a hundred yards behind the general advance. The risk in "firing back" is obvious. The writer remembers being one of two guns with the beaters, when a pair of stags, jumping up close ahead, bolted straight back, passing almost within arm's length. As the second carried a fairly good head, I dismounted and shot it, but was then horrified to discover that my companion-gun had (contrary to all rules) gone back in that very direction to shoot a _woodcock_! DRIVING BIG GAME On "driving" as such we do not propose to enlarge. The system is simple though the practice is subject to variation. On the gently undulated levels of Doñana, for example, the latter (as already indicated) is widely differentiated from the systems practised in mountainous countries--whether in Scotland or the Spanish sierras--where shots can safely be accepted at incoming or at passing game. Guns are there protected from danger by intervening ridges, crags, and piled-up rocks that flank each "pass." Here the game must be left to pass well through and outside the line of guns before a shot is permissible. Our "drives," whether in forest or scrub, seldom exceed a couple of miles in extent; but in wild regions where isolated patches of covert are scattered, inset amid wastes of sand, the area may be extended to half a day's ride. These long scrambling drives gain enhanced interest to a naturalist in precisely inverse ratio with their probability of success. In a big-game drive the first animals to come forward are, as a rule, foxes and lynxes--creatures which move on impulse, and instantly quit a zone where danger threatens. Both, however, will certainly pass unseen should there be any scrub to conceal their retreat. The lynx especially is adept at utilising cover, however slight. Should open patches or sandy glades occur among the bush, foxes will be viewed bundling along, to all appearance quite carelessly. Here in Spain foxes are merely "vermin"; but it is a mistake to shoot them, owing to the risk of thereby turning back better game. Neither lynx nor fox, by the way, are accounted _caza mayor_ unless killed with a bullet. [Illustration: _SYLVIA MELANOCEPHALA_ (Sardinian warbler; conspicuous by its strong colour-contrasts.)]