130 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



breakfast spread on the heather, already seated beside which 

 were the other guns, who were to join us in the serious work 

 of the day, after some much-needed refreshment had been 

 taken. Many and various were the jokes attempted at our 

 cost, but we treated them with the lofty derision we could 

 so well afford, and never, not even late in the afternoon, 

 when we were conscious of a certain stiffness about the 

 knees, the result of early rising, did we regret the night 

 in the open and the marvellous beauty of a highland sunrise. 

 There is more sweetness in the early hours of this sea-begirt 

 kingdom than perhaps one in a thousand of its inhabitants 

 knows. 



CAPERCAILZIE SHOOTING. 



Cunning and strong while alive, and by no means a bad 

 table bird dead, the capercailzie lives amongst the finest of 

 natural scenery, as we have said ; to stalk and shoot him 

 is fairly good sport with the additional attraction of glorious 

 exercise. Driving the great grouse over previously hidden 

 gunners is, however, little less than a shame. He does not 

 lend himself kindly to this latter sport, and his bulk is so 

 large that the simplest bungler who can pull a trigger gets 

 more than a fair chance, as the mass of feathers, borne on 

 broad wings, sweeps through the glades of the forest. 



With this theory in mind, I on one occasion made a quiet 

 raid upon the "cock of the woods " in his native fastnesses, 

 before deeper snow than that already fallen on the hills 

 round our Scotch lodge rendered his haunts inaccessible. 

 Thus one morning, when all necessary preparations had been 

 seen to overnight, cartridges loaded, boots greased, etc., we 

 were ready for a start immediately an early breakfast was 

 over "we," on this occasion, being myself and a useful 

 retriever, as fond of rough sport as his master, and possessing 

 a keen nose, an admirable temper, and a thick coat, all 



