More on Ripon
Of his few peers India’s Prince Freddie Duleep Singh, was perhaps the sharpest thorn his side. The two men did not speak to each other, but squared off often. One drive the Prince shot a high bird crossing his front, which fell dead and nearly struck Ripon. Enraged, he stormed the hill, yelling various imprecations, including "bloody nig...r." Singh then proceeded to down only such birds as were flying toward his fellow guest and shot them so that Ripon was bombarded by several pheasant corpses a minute.
Sept. 22, 1923, Ripon, age 71, invited his old crony, the Reverend Morris, and his estate agent Oswald Wade to shoot. There were to be seven drives. As usual the keepers were told to concentrate all the-birds on their employer's blind. Ripon shot over three-quarters of the bag. In the first five drives he shot 40, 17, 25, 17 and 25 grouse. In the sixth he did best of all, but when the retrievers returned with the quarry Ripon reckoned that two of his grouse were still to be found, not to mention a snipe. Fuming at the incompetence he sent two spaniels into the heather and each brought back one of the missing birds. "You'll have to get some better dogs," he snarled. At 3:15 pm he fell to the ground dead. The 53 grouse he shot that drive were never added to his life total.
HD - I have links to lots of wingshooting classics here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x7uk0ii6-lPdWEZj5ctyqr1td19ZcsA5xGGoKBhP9o0/editUnfortunately, I don't believe "Field and Covert" has been digitized
