A PTARMIGAN DAY. 213 



by a family of discreet badgers, whose use-aud- 

 wont title is never disturbed, except when the 

 mountain fox in spring takes forcible possession 

 of the lower cairns, where the abundant stock of 

 blue hares affords her voracious litter an unfailing 

 supply. 



Few, however, of the badgers' tenements are 

 now challenged or required by his supplanting 

 rival, for trap and gun are telling on the hill fox, 

 and, like the marten and wild-cat, he is gradually 

 becoming more rare. Still the old-fashioned 

 " foxhunter " is not yet banished from these 

 primeval lands, but conducts his spring and 

 autumn hunts in the stereotyped style of " sixty 

 years since." 



He is a dark bony man in the decline of life, 

 descended from a race of foxhunters, his father 

 and grandfather having had charge of the same 

 wild district as himself. Scrupulously polite and 

 courteous to gentlemen when addressing me 

 he always gives the honour of knighthood if 

 irritated by the farmers or shepherds compos- 

 ing his hunt, he is a perfect master of Gaelic 

 slang. Being a good running shot, he is as 



