GROUSE SHOOTING IN IRELAXD. 103 



weather and a scarcity of birds, and we returned to 

 Carlow thoroughly disgusted with the Irish climate and 

 the Wicklow mountains. I have been told that at the 

 present time in Ireland the moor game is much better 

 preserved, and for this object, poison for dogs is laid in 

 the mountains before and immediately after the shoot- 

 ing season.* The burning of the heather is much prac- 

 tised in many of the grouse districts, and this operation 

 is supposed by sportsmen to be beneficial to grouse, 

 when it is performed at the proper season, and not 

 injurious to their breeding. 



* A case was heard before Sheriff Earclay at Perth, against a game- 

 keeper of the Lord Kinuaird, for poisoning a shepherd's dog. It ap- 

 peared that the keepers were in the habit of laying hares and rabliits that 

 had been saturated with nux vomica in the hedge-rows, by which a 

 shepherd's dog had been killed. But as the charge could not be proved 

 against the keeper, he was acquitted. The sheriff, pronouncing judg- 

 ment, laid it down, that even supposmg a dog were to trespass upon 

 covert where game was kept, and was poisoned, the person who laid it 

 down, and even the proprietor of the grounds, if he was aware of the 

 practice, would be liable, in civil law, for the value of the animal. 



