GROUSE SHOOTING. 87 



sportsman could desire ; no day was too long for lier, 

 and dm-ing the many years I jiursued field sports, I 

 never had her equal. I have an excellent likeness of 

 her in an oil painting, by a skilful animal painter, Avith 

 an old favourite hunter. 



The old cock grouse sometimes rises with the pack ; 

 endeavour to shoot him ; he is easily distinguished by 

 his cackling ; very frequently he rises forward making 

 the same noise, with the object of leading the sports- 

 man away from the brood. He is also their pilot in in- 

 ducing them to take longer flight, and to increase their 

 shyness. Grrouse, like other game, lie best on a warm 

 sunny day, and if the heather is high, and your dogs 

 steady, a tolerable good shot may calculate on bagging 

 on a well preserved moor in Scotland, in the early part 

 of the season, his five and twenty or thirty brace of 

 grouse, which I really think ought to satisfy the most 

 voracious appetite for slaughter. I am aware that more 

 than treble thirty brace * were shot by a gentleman in 

 Ai'gyleshire in one day. His name was Campbell ; he 

 was a first-rate shot. He killed one hundred brace of 

 grouse in one day. He had three or four sets of fresh 

 dogs, and one or two keepers to supply him with guns, 

 as soon as he had discharged his two barrels. This 

 extraordinary sporting exploit was, I believe, performed 



* In the moutli of March grouse, generally speaking, quit the low 

 grounds, and go to the high grounds in pairs. Sportsmen desirous of 

 renting moors, should now send an intelligent gamekeeper with good 

 dogs, to ascertain if there is good breeding-stock left. If the moor is 

 extensive, the groimd should be divided into beats, and if the keeper 

 sees about twenty or thirty brace paired, from ten o'clock in the morn- 

 ing imtil the afternoon, good sport may be reasonably expected ; this 

 precaution is particularly necessary, as the person renting the moor 

 pays beforehand. 



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