GROUSE SHOOTING. 29 



having given the finishing touch to a tragedy or an 

 epic poem. 'T is like taking to catching shrimps in 

 the sand with one's toes, on one's return from Davis's 

 Straits in a whaler that arrived at Peterhead with 

 sixteen fish, each calculated at ten tuns of oil." 

 Elsewhere he says, " We do not admire that shooting- 

 ground which resemhles a poultry-yard. Grouse and 

 barn-door fowls are constructed on opposite principles ; 

 the former being wild, the latter tame creatures, 

 when in their respective perfection. Of all dull 

 pastimes, the dullest seems to us sporting in a pre- 

 serve ; and we believe that we show that feeling with 

 the Grand Siguier. The sign of a lonely inn in the 

 Highlands ought not to be the Hen and Chickens. 

 Some shooters, we know, sick of common sport, love 

 slaughter. From sunrise to sunset of the first day 

 of the moors they must bag their hundred brace. 

 That can only be done where pouts prevail, and 

 cheepers keep chiding ; and where you have half a 

 dozen attendants to head your double barrels sans 

 intermission, for a round dozen of hours spent in a 

 pei-petual fire. Commend us to a plentiful sprinkling 

 of game ; to ground which seems occasionally barren, 

 and which it needs a fine instructed eye to traverse 

 scientifically, and thereof to detect the latent riches. 

 Fear and hope are the deities of the moors, else 

 would they lose their witchcraft. A gentleman ought 

 not to shoot like a gamekeeper, any more than at 

 billiards to play like a marker ; nor with four in hand 

 ought he to tool his prads like the Portsmouth 

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