EATTITE (from Fr. battle, to beat). The B. is a method of killing game on a great scale, by causing animals to be driven forward to a point where a number of shooters are waiting to shoot them. The driving is effected by beating the bushes; hence the term battue. This term, like the practice which it imports, is only of modern date; yet a plan of killing deer by driving them forward in herds in an ever-narrowing circle to a place where they are to be shot, is an old usage in the Highlands, where it is called the Michel. The B. is at best a commonplace and butcher]y amusement, for it can scarcely be said to have the merit of being attended with even a reasonable degree of exercise and excitement. It is practiced chiefly in extensive preserves of pheasants and hares during the autumn and winter months, when country gentlemen invite acquaintances to their mansions for the sake of field-sports. The B. takes place early in the day, and with good arrangements it is attended with neither fatigue nor danger. The number
of shooters is usually eight or ten, each provided with at least two guns, which are loaded by an assistant as quickly as they are discharged. When the shooters are sta tioned at safe distances from each other, and ready to commence work, the beaters begin theirs by driving the game before them. Sometimes, however, pheasants will run a long way before rising on wing, and to make them take to flight on approaching the guns, a low net is stretched across their path. It should be stated, however, that in the B., hares, rabbits, etc., are shot as readily as pheasants; and at length the ground is covered with slain, like a field of battle. I3y means of the B., large quantities of game are killed, and sent to market; the profits derived from this species of stock on some estates amounting, to no inconsiderable sum annually. For an account of battue shooting, we refer to The Shot-gun and Sporting Rifle, also Stonehenge's British Rural Sports (Lon don, 1875).