CHAPTER THREE THE GROUSE 



more satisfaction in killing a moderate quantity of birds, 

 in a wild and varied range of hill, with my single brace of 

 dogs, and wandering in any direction that fancy leads me, 

 than in having my day's beat laid out for me, with relays 

 of dogs and keepers, and all the means of killing the grouse 

 on easy walking ground, where they are so numerous that 

 one has only to load and fire. In the latter case, I generally 

 find myself straying off in pursuit of some teal or snipe, to 

 the neglect of the grouse, and the disgust of the keeper, 

 who may think his dignity compromised by attending a 

 sportsman who returns with less than fifty brace. Nothing- 

 is so easy to shoot as a grouse, when they are tolerably 

 tame; and with a little choice of his shots, a very moderate 

 marksman ought to kill nearly every bird that he shoots 

 at early in the season, when the birds sit close, fly slowly, 

 and are easily found. At the end of the season, when the 

 coveys are scattered far and wide, and the grouse rise and 

 fiy wildly, it requires quick shooting and good walking to 

 make up a handsome bag; but how much better worth 

 killing are the birds at this time of year than in August. If 

 my reader will wade through some leaves of an old note- 

 book, I will describe the kind of shooting that, in my 

 opinion, renders the sporting in the Highlands far prefer- 

 able to any other that Great Britain can afford. 



October 2oth. — Determined to shoot across to Malcolm's 

 shealing, at the head of the river, twelve miles distant; to 

 sleep there; and kill some ptarmigan the next day. 



For the first mile of our walk we passed through the old 

 fir woods, where the sun seldom penetrates. In the differ- 

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