BLACKGAME 69 



and says " Good-bye ! " and you watch with regret his 

 fading form as it grows fainter and fainter, and you see 

 him wending his way, not as you have been accustomed 

 to, namely, galloping in steady well-timed leaps, but 

 alternating between mincing little steps and excitable 

 rushes forward, as though feigning sudden terror. Finally 

 you see him take a farewell look at the morning landscape, 

 as the sun picks out his bright coat against the black fir- 

 wood into which he is about to plunge. I have spent 

 many delightful mornings amongst the moors and woods 

 of bonnie Scotland watching the awakening of Nature after 

 the winter sleep, and cannot say I ever regretted or missed 

 the time usually spent in bed ; how one does enjoy breakfast, 

 too, afterwards ! and when you have had a smoke there 

 steals over you a deep sense of satisfaction and of having 

 been most agreeably entertained. It is quite as enjoyable, 

 in reality, as a good day's shooting, and the influence that 

 a sketch- and a note- book have is perhaps more satisfactory, 

 for they have a powerfully restraining effect upon the 

 thirst for gore which is so strongly implanted in the heart 

 of nearly every young Britisher. 



From our point of observation we can see the Black- 

 cocks arrive on the ground that is to say, if they are not 

 there already. One's attention is attracted to the scene of 

 the future triumphs and defeats by the almost continuous 

 whirring calls of the Blackcocks, which are loud and 

 resonant. 1 On still, bright mornings I have distinctly 

 heard their notes at a distance of two miles. This call 

 soon attracts the Greyhens, who are sure to be close at 



1 The noise resembles nothing that I can think of "but the sound 

 produced by a luggage-train passing over loose metals at a distance. 



