220 A PTAEMIGAN DAY. 



On the llth September, a rather too clear 

 morning determined me to risk my "ptarmigan 

 day." I had at that time two excellent rock- 

 dogs, one a black setter with indomitable pluck 

 to search every stony cairn, his assistant an old 

 pointer of famed pedigree, and staid as Ben Loy 

 itself. 



With a game-pouch slung over my shoulder 

 and the trusty canine coupled at heel, I left Glen- 

 falloch door before eight o'clock. A short walk 

 along the highroad leads to the rough steep path 

 winding over the first height. Surrounded by 

 natural strips of wood, and skirting the Kuron 

 burn, whose dark and drumly linns raved from 

 the rocky abyss, this track ended in the heathery 

 morasses at the foot of the Kuron hill. Hitherto 

 I had been threading the covert-haunts of roes 

 and black-game, but now the route lay for eight 

 long miles among the domains of grouse and deer. 



Although the Kuron hill, from its very rugged- 

 ness, sometimes gave a short stretch of tolerably 

 level walking, these eight miles of moorland were 

 nevertheless one continued climb till they reached 

 the base of Ben Loy. Sometimes a pack of grouse 



