GROUSE MOOES AND DEEE FORESTS. 251 



interior of Africa, vapoured about it, till even some sensible 

 people began to think there was some solid grievance ; and 

 thus sport in the Highlands grew up under the powerful 

 stimulants of wealth and fashion on the one hand, and 

 subject to the powerful opposition of political and social 

 faction on the other. 



No wonder the development was rapid, and the method 

 of pursuing the Tetras Scoticus of Linnaeus, or common red 

 grouse, passed through numberless modifications in the 

 course of a sportsman's memory. Few birds afford more 

 delightful and exhilarating sporfc, followed as one used to 

 follow them years ago, with the stout untiring English 

 setters, over the purple moorlands, with many a knee-deep 

 plunge in the soft boggy ground bordering the springs, where 

 the grouse love to congregate, watching the clever systematic 

 working of the dogs, and the point steady as a rock, when 

 with a whirr and a rush a fine young cock rises perpen- 

 dicularly some ten or twelve yards, then turns sharp for a 

 horizontal flight, but at that instant, as he poises on the turn, 

 the sharp challenge of the gun rings out, and a dishevelled 

 mass of feathers lies on the heather. Such sport as this in the 

 eye of the old sportsman cannot be excelled ; but " autres temps, 

 autres mceurs" the expenses of grouse-shooting have largely 

 increased, the city poulterer gives a ready market for the 

 quarry, and the temptation to make large bags, and so par- 

 tially defray the expenses, becomes every year greater, though 

 such an idea would have revolted the souls of the simple- 

 minded lairds and chiefs of olden times, and is still looked 

 on with great dissatisfaction by numbers of the peasantry. 

 The invention and improvement of breech-loaders has tended 

 to the same result, and conduced to the modern style of 

 walking in line at short distances apart, with gillies follow- 

 ing and carrying extra guns; till, in many parts, shooting 

 over dogs is regarded as an antiquated amusement, fit only 

 for old fogies. Whether arising from the frequent disturb- 

 ance caused by this mode of pursuit, or from the larger head 



