THE PRESERVATION OF GAME. 305 



He will soon find that he gets hard blows, and can only return 

 by make-believes. 



Since wintering stock in the Lowlands and summer grazing 

 on the hills has come into vogue, it is the interest of every 

 hill-farmer to burn as much heather as he can for summer 

 grass a profitable enough practice for sheep, but ruinous to 

 game. Let the grouse-tenant, however, attempt to restrict a 

 farmer in his spring burning, and the latter can safely and 

 easily retaliate with tenfold vengeance. No one who has not 

 suffered from it can imagine how these wholesale jungle -fires 

 mar not only our sport, but debase and deaden our most pic- 

 turesque mountain scenery ; and it is only the proprietors or 

 renters of deer-forests who can return year after year to find 

 their cherished Highland resort fresh and unblackened as they 

 left it, with the comfortable reflection, too, that no unfriendly 

 foot has a right to disturb " the graceful flock that never needs 

 a fold." 



To kill deer or salmon is about the easiest sporting of the 

 present day. The half -tame herds of modern forests are easily 

 stalked ; and driving deer like grouse-drives, is a lazy method 

 of procuring chances without labour or skill. Boat-fishing for 

 salmon, with expert oarsmen, levels that glorious pastime also 

 to almost any one's capacity ; but when gentlemen condescend 

 to sunk fences in the forest, and stepping-stones at the salmon- 

 pool, surely these are smart tricks invented within the sound 

 of " Old Bow," 1 to ensure the success of such as mistake herons 

 for eagles, and firmly decline to soil their knees or wet their 

 feet. Are not such paltry ruses degrading to any manly 

 recreation ? Do they not strip it of all adventure, and tone 

 down the very excitement and romance ? 



The sporting season for deer ends early in October, when 

 they exchange the summer red for a winter coat of coarse 



1 An old forester, not a hundred miles from Braemar, having been often mor- 

 tified by his most skilful stalks ending blank, had evidently complained to his 

 shrewd wife of the London rifle. With a knowing wink she remarked to me of 

 its London owner, " I'm thinkin' he's no bad at the missin' ! " 



U 



