30 GAME BIRDS AND SHOOTING-SKETCHES 



human nature one moment to admire, the next to 

 destroy ! 



Never can I think of Caper-shooting as it should be, in 

 all its perfection, without my thoughts running back to 

 one or two happy days spent in a certain grand wood on 

 the hill-slopes of the Tay, above Ballinluig. near Pitlochry 

 where, indeed, shooting par excellence is to be had, not 

 only on account of the number of birds always to be 

 found there, but from the sporting shots one is sure of 

 getting, and which very soon test the shooter's skill with 

 the weapon of death. Within about two hundred yards 

 of the south end of the wood there are placed the two 

 best stands, one a shelf of rock on the top of a little pre- 

 cipice, at the foot of which the other is situated. On this 

 higher spot the sportsman, when he has had time to 

 recover his breath after his recent exertions in climbing, 

 can look around him and see about as lovely a panorama 

 stretched out before him as can be found in Scotland, 

 which is saying a great deal. A Sparrow -Hawk that 

 conies sailing by, skirting the tree-tops, looks an uncom- 

 monly long shot away below him, and he involuntarily 

 steps back a pace or two from the brink, as he thinks how 

 easy it would be for him to slide over the edge of the 

 rocks if those slippery pine-needles were only given half a 

 chance. He must keep his gaze steadily directed towards 

 the north, for that is the direction from whence the 

 beaters are coming a distance of nearly two miles, and he 

 will not have long to wait ere he sees something like a 

 little black speck that every moment causes its identity to 

 grow into a palpable form, and he knows that the drive 

 has begun. 



