

GROUSE. 1L5 



ing their beautiful sleek forms, their roundness of shape and 

 compactness of build ; in fact, one could almost trace the 

 effect of the healthy mountain air in them. They would no 

 more suit the lowlands than a loch trout would become an 

 Essex ditch. 



A few yards further again a solitary bird got up on my 



side, and was brought down in better style. Then J 



had a chance at two with like result, and so we went along 

 for a couple of hours. Whether it was that the birds had 

 not done feeding, or for some other reason, they lay well, 

 and in general rose by twos and threes instead of coveys, an 

 arrangement which suited us well, as the wholesale rises on 

 this, the opening day, shook our nerves very considerably. 

 I have listened to wild elephants charging through the dense 

 bamboo thickets of a southern Indian jungle, and expecting 

 every moment to see a great colossus bearing down on my 

 stand, but somehow it was not half so deranging to my 

 shooting as the sudden springing from heather of a whole 

 concourse of loud- winged grouse. A little later on, when 

 the bags were becoming very heavy and our thoughts turned 

 to lunch and the bottled beer waiting for us, we entered a 

 rough piece of land with a rather thick growth of spruce 

 firs. This we beat carefully, until about the centre our 

 nerves were again tried by the rising of a monstrous brown 

 bird, which, as it went away down the slope like a runaway 

 boulder, seemed as large as a big turkey. We both threw 



up our guns, but J fired first, and down it came amid a 



cloud of feathers, though the distance was a fair forty yards, 

 and the shot only N"o. 6. We knew it must be a capercailzie, 

 and such it turned out to be, a fine young bird of nine or ten 

 pounds, an addition to the bag which decided us at once to 

 strike straight up the hillside to the spring, at the edge of 

 which we were to tiffin. 



There seems to be no legal close time for these grand 

 wild fowl ; as far as Scotland is concerned their protection 

 may safely be left to the owners of the wild mountain forests 



