ROUSE MOOES AND DEER FORESTS. 259 



beware lest the nervous agitation of the moment cause you 

 to lose your head, or cause your hand to quiver and so you 

 spoil that grand haunch, or worse still, commit the one 

 unpardonable sin on a forest of wounding the deer. Better 

 had you missed it altogether, better often that you should take 

 the nearest train and boat to the wild west than appear 

 before your host with such a confession. 



But the average Englishman does not understand the 

 conditions of sport on the deer forest. To him it seems 

 grievous that the botanizing professor should be disturbed 

 in the pursuit of his hobby; that the artist should be 

 debarred from the lovely glens ; that the home-going peasant 

 should be shut out from a short cut home across his native 

 hills. And it seems grievous precisely in proportion to his 

 inability to understand the damage these would do ; and 

 thus a door is opened to the political and other malcontents 

 who would destroy the forests of Scotland, to do so by a 

 side wind and indirect attack. The Access to Mountains 

 Bill was a case in point. The amount of sympathy and 

 support this proposal won was directly due to the impos- 

 sibility of ordinary folk guaging the disingenuous nature 

 of its proposals, and the specious fair-seeming with which 

 they were brought forward. 



J. W. BRODIE INNES. 



THE LAWS OF COVERT AND FEN. 



Game and wildfowl laws, it may be fairly noted, are impor- 

 tant in two respects. There is, firstly, their effect from a 

 national point of view, their bearing on the abundance or 

 scarcity of fur and feather itself. There are, secondly, con- 

 siderations, dear to theoretical politicians, as whether the 

 ground of a necessity devoted to them is wisely so devoted, 

 whether they are good for the morality of the country-side, 

 or whether they stir up hatred, and malice, and so on, 

 in a circle of wide questions about which men have not 



