PREFACE. xxiii 



the same as other marketable things, and I can only 

 assure anyone thinking of renting deer ground that 

 he will speedily discover that to find out " how much 

 to pay ? " is the easiest part of the business. 



It has been a custom with me to dedicate 

 my books to some kind friend who has given me 

 happy days with deer or grouse or salmon, but 

 death, alas ! has been busy in their ranks, for first 

 Sir Robert Bateson Harvey, then Henry Spencer 

 Lucy, and lastly, in October of this year, my old 

 friend Colonel John Hargreaves, for so long the 

 renter of Gaick Forest with Glentromie grouse shoot- 

 ings, have each joined the great majority, and the 

 longer I live, the truer I find the saying that " the 

 deaths of our friends are the milestones of our lives." 

 Yet, however, I am loth to abandon my old habit, 

 and therefore I dedicate these pages to His Grace 

 the Duke of Westminster as a trifling acknowledg- 

 ment of the kindness shown me by him, the 

 Duchess and all their family at Lochmore, where this 

 past season I had the good fortune to stalk over 



