190 AUTUMNS IN ARGYLESHIRE 



pocketed, it is impossible not to laugh, especially 

 if you are not personally responsible for the train- 

 ing of the delinquent. Of one thing I am per- 

 fectly convinced it is not the number of birds 

 killed which constitutes the charm of shooting. 

 My bag has varied from a hundred brace and over 

 to my gun, killed more than once in Forfarshire in 

 the record year 1872, to a few brace shared with 

 a couple of schoolboys ; yet it is hard to say which 

 days I have enjoyed most. Of course there are 

 some days and years especially noteworthy. In 

 1872 the first Lord Cairns, his brother-in-law, 

 Mr. McNeil, dear Edward Ross, the Queen's Prize- 

 man now also, alas ! no more and myself got 

 over 1500 brace over dogs in ten days; and on 

 August 25, the second time over the ground, I 

 got by myself 75| brace of grouse and a few snipe 

 and hares ; and for contrast, I remember the 

 stormy day when Lord Lauderdale was killed by 

 lightning on the moor, when the wet and cold 

 was so severe in Argyleshire that one of our 

 pointers actually died on the hill then and there 

 from the effect of cold and exposure. 



Let the reader now accompany me for a short 

 time to the country I know and love best dear 

 Argyleshire, where forty brace over dogs is, and 

 always has been, a great day ; but which, in spite 

 of all drawbacks of climate, is, in my judgment, 

 the most delightful place in Scotland 



Our dogcart has just driven through the 



