270 WOLF-HUNTING. 



her homeward journey, would rarely draw his trigger in vain at 

 such a time. Then the hounds, with their half-reasoning powers, 

 would quickly put two and two together, and discover that this 

 shot, fired by their master, usually betokened the death of the 

 hare and this inference probably led them to fly to the carpen- 

 ter's signal so readily, whenever a check made it doubtful whether 

 the scent could be recovered again or not. 



As we advanced farther into the wilderness for such, in the 

 absence of all traces of cultivation, it certainly was we came to 

 a broad plateau in the direction of Huelgoet, so matted with 

 heather, knee-deep and luxuriant on every side, that whenever 

 old Sancho, carrying his head aloft in the air, and indicating by 

 his earnest expression the immediate presence of game, came to 

 a dead point, I almost made up my mind that a grouse must 

 rise from such likely ground. But no ; the inevitable red-leg 

 dominates here, and the grouse and blackcock are as unknown 

 as the dodo in this land of ling. Yet anyone comparing these 

 moors producing as they do the whortleberry heather, the cran- 

 berry, and black fir with the moors of Great Britain, would be 

 puzzled to explain why grouse are not indigenous here as they 

 are in our own favoured country ; for certainly the means of 

 subsistence for them appear to be as abundant in this as in that 

 land. The great landed proprietors of Lower Brittany might 

 possibly take a leaf with advantage from the Highland laird's 

 farm-book, and, by the cultivation of grouse, hither imported 

 convert tens of thousands of acres, now lying waste and 

 unprofitable, into valuable shooting ground. Capital would, 

 of course, be required even for such a stock; but here that 

 commodity is rare indeed, and until it is supplied, these vast 

 tracts of waste land must remain, we fear, as desolate to the 

 sportsman's eye as they are profitless to the owner's pocket. 



The red-legs, too, were not so plentiful as Marseillier seemed 

 to expect them in such favourable ground, three coveys, number- 



