GROUSE: THE HEATHER BIRD. 



remarked that "the grouse season rules the Parlia- 

 mentary recess," although Professor Blackie, with 

 equal facetiousness, has told us: "A London brewer 

 shoots the grouse. A lordling stalks the deer." And, 

 as the poet sings : 



Who treads on the heather will ne'er feel the gout, 

 Though to health he has been a wild sinner; 



Nor die of a surfeit, though after a bout 



With some chief at a true Highland dinner. 



It has been recorded that the total sporting capi- 

 tal of Scotland is estimated at about 12,000,000 ster- 

 ling. The sporting rental of the shire of Inverness 

 alone is estimated at 50,000 a year, in calculating 

 the rental of a moor, and this allows a guinea for 

 every brace of grouse shot on it. Or, as another writer 

 puts it : " 'The Heather is cheap enough,' we are some- 

 times told ; 'it ranges from about seven pence to 

 eighteen pence an acre ;' but the extras amount up to 

 a tidy sum before the season closes. * * * No 

 good shooting with a comfortable residence upon it 

 can be obtained much under two hundred and fifty 

 pounds for the season ; but the expenses concomitant 

 largely augment that sum." 



The Rev. Hugh Macmillan thus pictures the as- 

 sociations of the sport: "The fresh, exhilarating air 

 of the hills, laden with the all-pervading perfume of 

 the heather bells ; the magnificent prospect of hill and 

 valley stretching around; the blue serenity of the 

 autumnal sky; the carpet of flowering Heather glow- 

 ing for miles on every side, and so elastic to the tread : 



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