118 A HUNDKED YEAES 



fighting; and though they were brothers, of the same 

 litter, before very long the one killed the other. We 

 always thought they must have had a dash of foxhound 

 or some other blood in them, as they took such a fear- 

 fully vicious grip of anything they got hold of. I 

 remember one day, when shooting grouse along a hill- 

 side on Inverewe, we heard a most awful row going on 

 ahead of us, and there were the black and tan brothers, 

 quite in their glory. They had come on a badger which 

 had got its foot in a small steel trap, set for a weasel or 

 crow, and had gone off with it. One would have thought 

 they had bulldog blood in them by the way they tackled 

 the badger and killed it straight ofi. 



We still have in use a big rug of badgers' skins in 

 front of our smoking-room fire, all caught on this place, 

 though, as in the case of the eagles, we had no wish to 

 exterminate them like wild-cats and foxes; in fact, we 

 should have liked to preserve them, but they would 

 not keep out of the vermin's traps, and so they soon 

 became extinct. 



At last I determined to start breeding setters of my 

 own, as the grouse and all other game had increased 

 greatly, and I secured a pedigree bitch from Sir Alexander 

 Gumming of Altyre. She was *' Gordon Castle " on the 

 one side and " Beaufort " on the other, and proved a 

 really good investment. Indeed, I was never, perhaps, 

 quite as successful with anything else as I was with my 

 setters from 1858 to 1914. For many a long year they 

 had such a good name that I used to sell from £80 to 

 £140 worth every season, and I always had more orders 

 than I could possibly supply. In 1914 we were compelled 



