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tage, with keuiiels and stables attacked, are close liandy ; 

 the keejjer, a spare workmanlike man, is here amongst his 

 dogs, a beautiful lot of setters, a cream bitch with lemon 

 ears being the queen of the party. "Yes," he says, in 

 reference to his display of " gallows-birds " ; there are a 

 good man}^ of those grey old crows about the mountains, 

 but he does not give them much rest. " Cats used to be 

 awful," he adds, because when the Vp'nvsy village was 

 pulled down, and the valley filled with water, the homeless 

 cats were driven to seek refuge in the mountains, and to 

 fall back upon rabbits and grouse for a living. And now 

 we start the scramble upwards to the shooting ground, the 

 steepness of the climb being somewhat aggravated b}' a bed 

 of loose stones, which form our track. But the distance 

 is not great, and the beautiful views on all hands well repay 

 us for our labour, quite apart fi'om all considerations of 

 sport. Away to the soiith, spread out like a panorama, lies 

 the lake without a ripple, and reflecting like a mirror the 

 mountains by which it is encircled. TVe are now amongst 

 the pealcs of the Bala range and no more pleasantly placed 

 or more picturesque grouse moor could be desired. There 

 are a capital stock of birds this season, thanks to the grouse 

 not having been severely thinned last year, seven guns on 

 five or six thousand acres of mountain, when driving, being 

 the most severe treatment to which the moor was upon 

 occasions subjected. Away on the western portion of this 

 range there ai'e probably a couple of thousand acres or more 

 of easy-going ground, which, if not quite as level as a 

 billiard table is at any rate just undulating enough to 

 afford pleasant shooting without too much exertion. Driv- 

 ing-butts, eighty yards apart, cover all the ground available 

 for that branch of the sport, which, jear by year, appears 

 to be resorted to earlier than heretofore. The birds here, in 

 common with all those bred on sheep-feed moors elsewhere, 

 are said to be so wild that early driving is absolutely neces- 

 sary; but whether the presence of shepherds and sheep 

 is responsible for such wildness is open to very 

 grave doubt. Be that as it may, the tenants 

 follow the fashion in the matter of earlv drivinjr. 



