SEAL-SHOOTING. 



" No man," says the old Highlander, " has any 

 right to a hunter's badge who has not killed a red- 

 deer, an eagle, a salmon, and a seal." Some also 

 include the wild swan ; but this last test of High- 

 land sportsmanship seems scarcely fair, as the 

 hooper is a cosmopolitan bird of passage, frequent- 

 ing in hard winters most of the undisturbed pieces 

 of water in the United Kingdom. Although the 

 lonely moor lochan is a favourite resort both of 

 Bewick's and the common wild swan, there are 

 also large tracts among our wildest mountain dis- 

 tricts where they are never seen, or even heard of. 

 I should, therefore, be inclined to reckon the 

 hooper as a more correct criterion of skill in an 

 F 



