30 GAME BIRDS AND SHOOTING-SKETCHES 



human nature — one moment to admire, the next to 

 destroy ! 



Never can I think of Caper-shooting as it sliouLl be, in 

 all its perfection, without my thoughts running back to 

 one or two happy days spent in a certain grand wood on 

 the hill-slopes of the Tay, above Ballinluig, near Pitlochry 

 — where, indeed, shooting ^a?' excellence is to be had, not 

 only on account of the number of birds always to be 

 found there, but from the sporting shots one is sure of 

 getting, and which very soon test the shooter's skill wdth 

 the weapon of death. Within al)out two hundred yards 

 of the south end of the wood there are placed the two 

 best stands, one a shelf of rock on the top of a little pre- 

 cipice, at the foot of which the other is situated. ( )n this 

 higher spot the sportsman, when he has had time to 

 recover his l)reatli after his recent exertions in climbing, 

 can look around him and see about as lovely a panorama 

 stretched out before him as can be found in Scotland, 

 which is saying a great deal. A Sparrow -Hawk that 

 comes sailing by, skirting the tree-tops, looks an uncom- 

 monly long shot away l)elow him, and he involuntarily 

 steps l3ack a pace or two from the Ijrink, as he thinks how 

 easy it would l)e for him to slide over the edge of the 

 rocks if those slippery pine-needles were only given half a 

 chance. He must keep his gaze steadily directed towards 

 the north, for that is the direction from whence the 

 beaters are comino; a distance of nearlv two miles, and he 

 will not have lono' to wait ere he sees somethinof like a 

 little black speck that every moment causes its identity to 

 grow into a palpaljle form, and he knows that the drive 

 has beo-un. 



o 



