A HUNDEED YEAES IN THE HIGHLANDS 259 



once counted sixty Black-cock on the stooks of a very 

 small field, and the old farmer, to whom the patch of 

 oats belonged, told her he had counted one hundred the 

 previous evening. The keeper on that beat told me 

 quite lately that along the whole loch-side, a stretch of 

 country of from twelve to fourteen miles, he knows of 

 only one Black-cock. 



When I was a small boy in the fifties I used to follow 

 the head-keeper, whose duty it was to provide game 

 for the larder; on the low ground round the head of 

 Loch Gairloch the bags used to consist of Black Game, 

 Partridges, and Brown Hares ; now there is not a single 

 head of Black Game, nor a Partridge, nor even a Brown 

 Hare to be found. From Cape Wrath, I may say, to the 

 Clyde the Partridges are extinct, or very nearly so. 

 They used to be fairly plentiful up and down this west 

 coast, and quite good in many parts of Skye and Argyll, 

 and even here, with only little bits of arable land, I have 

 killed as many as fifty brace in a season in the sixties 

 and seventies. No one can account for their disap- 

 pearance, and though they have been reintroduced on 

 various occasions, the restocking has been of no avail. 



Though Eed Grouse have not done very well on this 

 coast for the last few years, there are still enough on some 

 parts to replenish it if we could get a few good breeding 

 seasons. Both north and south of us, however, I hear 

 very ominous reports of districts where big bags were 

 once made — in some cases about nine hundred brace 

 used to be the bag — but where now there are practically 

 none. Similar reports come from some of the inland 

 portions of Inverness-shire and from many of the islands, 



