254 Ikings of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, an& (Bun 



thirty yards of Mr. Coke, they did no harm by flushing 

 birds in their free-and-easy manner. They dropped to 

 shot and retrieved dead and wounded birds beautifully, 

 and I thought at the time if I had had them instead of 

 ' the Squire's ' high-bred pointers, I should have made a 

 better bag the first day." 



Touching this same Mr. William Coke, it was told of 

 him that he was the first man that went in earnest deer- 

 stalking in the Highlands. He had a pair of corduroy 

 breeches which " Squire " Osbaldeston declared that he 

 never took off for a fortnight. Crawling on hands and 

 knees, he was for the time being a second Nebuchad- 

 nezzar. 



Of his own grouse-shooting and deer- stalking exploits 

 Captain Ross in a letter to a friend supplied the follow- 

 ing particulars. " I never," he writes, u tried to make a 

 great bag of grouse in a day ; I think 65 brace was the 

 largest number of grouse I ever shot in one day. That 

 is nothing. Two hundred brace have since then been 

 shot in a day by one man easily, on August I2th. In 

 1828 (the year of my match with Colonel Anson) I 

 rented from the Duke of Athol a large range of shooting 

 called Feloar. I shot 87 deer that season to my own 

 rifle. I worked hard. I was always up at 3 a.m. and 

 seldom back to the lodge before 7 or 8 p.m., walking, 

 running, or crawling all the time. This was the grandest 

 training in the world. I believe I came to the post (for 

 the Anson match) at Mildenhall on November ist as fit 

 to go as winner of the Derby ever did at Epsom. In 

 1851 I shot 118 deer in Mar Forest. During that season 

 I killed 13 in one day with 14 chances. In 1837 I 



