WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



gregate, have at last settled down to live a busy kind of 

 idle life. Communing much with the wild birds and beasts 

 of our country, a hardy constitution and much leisure have 

 enabled me to visit them in their own haunts, and to follow 

 mysportingpropensities without fearof the penal tieswhich 

 are apt to follow a careless exposure of oneself to cold and 

 heat, at all hours of night and day. Though by habit and 

 repute abeingstronglyendowedwiththe organ of destruct- 

 iveness, I take equal delight in collecting round me all liv- 

 ing animals, and watching their habits and instincts; my 

 abode is, in short, a miniature menagerie. My dogs learn 

 to respect the persons of domesticated wild animals of all 

 kinds, and my pointers live in amity with tame partridges 

 and pheasants; myretrievers lounge about amidst my wild- 

 fowl, and my terriers and beagles strike up friendship with 

 the animals of different kinds whose capture they have as- 

 sisted in, and with whose relatives they are ready to wage 

 war to the death. A common and well kept truce exists 

 with one and all. My boys, who are of the most bird-nest- 

 ing age (eight and nineyears old), instead of disturbing the 

 numberless birds who breed in the garden and shrubberies 

 in full confidence of protection and immunity from all dan- 

 ger of gun or snare, strike up an acquaintance with every 

 family of chaffinches or blackbirds who breed in the place, 

 visiting every nest, and watching over the eggs and young 

 with a most parental care. 



My principal aide-de-camp in my sporting excursions 

 is an old man, who, although passing for somewhat of a 

 simpleton, has more acuteness and method in his vagaries 

 than most of his neighbours. For many years he seems to 



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