65 



SEAL-SHOOTING. 



" No man," says the old Highlander, " has any right to a 

 hunter's badge who has not killed a red-deer, an eagle, a 

 salmon, and a seal." Some also include the wild swan ; but 

 this last test of Highland sportsmanship seems scarcely fair, as 

 the hooper is a cosmopolitan bird of passage, frequenting in 

 hard winters most of the undisturbed pieces of water in the 

 United Kingdom. Although the lonely moor lochan is a 

 favourite resort both of Bewick's and the common wild swan, 

 there are also large tracts among our wildest mountain districts 

 where they are never seen, or even heard of. I should there- 

 fore be inclined to reckon the hooper as a more correct 

 criterion of skill in an English fenman with mud boots and 

 tarpaulins, than in a brogued and kilted Gael. 



The killing of red-deer and salmon has been of late years 

 so simplified by preservation, and by artificial modes of sport- 

 ing, that even the Cockney who possesses the talisman (money) 

 will very soon be made free both of the forest and the river. 

 What would the ancient hillman have thought of forests where 

 the deer were nearly as tame as sheep, and so numerous as to 

 be dwarfed both in size and antlers ? With what contempt 

 would he have growled his guttural at the sunk fences of the 

 forest, and the boat-fishing of Loch Tay and the Tweed, when 

 both are so crowded with spring or autumn fish that the veriest 

 greenhorn could not escape hooking them ! 



