114 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



our midday lunch, already the faint reports of the guns 

 were coming from all sides, as the day's work commenced on 

 the neighbouring moors. Across the valley, where the land, 

 rising abruptly, exposed all the face of the deep-tinted strath 

 to us, we could see a party at work, and in the bright morning 

 air, as thin and limpid as ether, it was easy to recognize 

 several well-known forms of friends and broad-shouldered 

 gillies. Now and again we caught a faint glint of sunshine 

 from a gun-barrel, and tben there would be a puff of cotton- 

 white smoke, followed rapidly by another and another ; and 

 as the wreaths lengthened out on the light breeze the sound 

 of the shots came to us one by one, and perhaps even the 

 shrill whistling of a keeper, calling in a wild young dog that 

 had gone in pursuit of the covey up the hillside. 



The first thing we put up was an old cock grouse, who 

 hardly showed for a moment, as he went down a hollow ; but 

 this fixed our attention on the work in hand, and we went 

 forward with guns ready and determination on our faces. 

 Up got another bird, and, determined to draw first blood, 



J fired immediately. We walked up, and there lay a 



grey-hen a forbidden bird until the twentieth. However, 

 J said nothing, but slipped it into his bag, and we moved 

 forward. Two or three grouse followed, one at a time, and 

 we are just beginning to keep rather a lax look-out my 

 companion marching along with his gun over his shoulder, 

 and myself lost in admiration of the wide-stretching ranges 

 of mountains, rising to the northward step above step in tiers 

 to the sky, purple in the shadows, green in the sunlight, 

 with twenty shades of grey blending above when from the 

 long heather at our feet comes a cackle, a flapping of wings, 

 and up rise some fifteen grouse as though they had all been 

 thrown up by the same spring. We got one with our first 

 two shots, and another with our next two by no means good 

 shooting, but, to tell the truth, we did not expect them just 

 then, as my companion said. We picked up the slain, and 

 as we straightened down their feathers, could not help admir- 



