130 GAJklE PRESERVERS AKD BIRD PRESERVERS. 



beautiful Highlands with the certainty of bag- 

 ging at the least 100 brace of grouse, and a 

 moor which produces 500 brace in a season, 

 particularly with a mixture of other game, will 

 command 500/. a year. But grouse shooting 

 where there are no grouse is the play of 

 Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out, 

 although men can enjoy themselves without 

 making heavy bags. We think there is more 

 pleasure in bringing home twenty-five brace 

 with the help of excellent dogs, by using 

 straight powder, and really walking for some 

 six or seven hours, killing perhaps half of 

 what we see, than in bagging four times that 

 number where the birds are gathered together 

 so thick that the dogs are pointing before they 

 can canter one hundred yards. But men and 

 dogs will not work to kill an occasional old 

 cock bird or to murder two or three brace 

 of unfortunate barren birds. After the second 

 or third day some excuse is made. Fishing 

 or boating is proposed. The work is too hard 



