BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



all along the first line of heather that met their flight : and if so 

 we shall pop them like partridges in turnips. Three points in 

 the game ! Each dog, it is manifest, stands to a different lot of 

 feathers : and we shall slaughter them, without dismounting, 

 seriatim. No, Hamish — we must dismount — give us your 

 shoulder — that will do. The Crutch — now we are on our pins. 

 Take a lesson. Whirr ! Bang ! Bag number one, Hamish. 

 Ay, that is right, Ponto — back Basta. Ditto, ditto. Now 

 Ponto and Basta both back Piro — right and left this time — 

 and not one of the brood will be left -to cheep of Christopher. 

 Be ready — attend us with the other double barrel. Whirr ! 

 Bang — bang — bang — bang ! What think you of that, you 

 son of the mist ? There is a shower of feathers ! They are all 

 at sixes and sevens upon the greensward at the edge of the 

 heather. Seven birds at four shots ! The whole family is 

 now disposed of — father, mother and eleven children. If such 

 fire be in the dry wood what must it have been in green ? Let 

 us lie down in the sheltered shade of the mossy walls of the 

 sheepfold — take a drop of Glenlivet — and philosophise.' 



Captain Ross said (1862) that he had never tried to make 

 a great bag in one day : he thought 65 brace was his heaviest, 

 ' but that is nothing : 200 brace have since been shot in a 

 day by one man easily on 12th August.' 



The Hon. A. E. Gathorne Hardy, in his delightful Autumns 

 in Argyleshire with Rod and Gun, observes that in his county 

 forty brace over dogs is, and always has been, a great day. Let 

 him speak for himself : — 



' . . , The road here degenerates into a mere farm track, 

 very steep in places ; but we have not much further to go, for 

 here is Stroneska farm, where dogs and keepers are waiting for 

 us. Altogether there are eight dogs — six pointers and two 

 setters ; but two of the pointers are only young ones in their 

 first season, brought out more for the benefit of their educa- 

 tion than to help the sport. In addition to the head-keeper 

 and the one to whose beat the ground belongs, there are two 

 gillies, one of whom bears on his back an enormous pannier, 



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