322 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



great fascination for me, harmonising as these do so thoroughly 

 with this bird's plumage and indeed with that of all others 

 except the gulls now met with. Try to find without a dog 

 a dead grey hen, a woodcock, grouse, or snipe dropped among 

 brown bracken, dry grass, moss and lichen, and heather in its 

 autumnal and winter garb, and you will get anxious about your 

 bird which you saw fall long before you at last discover him so 

 exactly does the colouring and marking of his plumage match 

 that of the bed on which he lies. 



Short days are now, alas ! and the weather trying and most 

 unfavourable to sport ; gales or strong winds attended by hail or 

 rain every day, with the exception of two in three weeks truly west 

 coast wintry weather, only perhaps " more so." During my visit 

 there was no beginning as there was no end to this wild weather. 

 The sea, thoroughly roused by these constant gales, was very 

 beautiful as it broke in whitest spray on the wild, rocky coast, or 

 rushed in silvery foam over sandy beach. The islands to the 

 east and the mainland beyond were deeply covered with snow, 

 and we hoped that hard frost on the latter might send some cock 

 over to us to our ever soft and rich feeding grounds, but very few 

 came apparently to swell the number of those resident on the 

 island. The boisterous weather greatly interfered with sport, 

 but we the keeper, boy, spaniel, retriever, and I were out 

 every and nearly all day. It was not altogether as pleasant as it 

 might have been, but to remain indoors when moor birds were 

 about would surely have been more trying still. We met with 

 geese on fields near the sea, duck, black game, grouse, woodcock, 

 pheasant, partridge, snipe, rabbits, and rock pigeons truly a 

 delightful selection of candidates for the bag ! The pheasants, 

 scattered as they are all over the moor, roost on rocks, for trees 

 are very rare and foxes none ; owls (horned) seem to do the 

 same, for on two occasions I nearly trod on one fast asleep 

 in the heather. Most of the cock were flushed from ledges 

 overhung with heather, in the vicinity generally of a burn, now 

 noisy and swollen from heavy rainfall. There, apparently, they 

 pass the day in sleep, until hunger and evening suggest a succu- 

 lent meal of worms in the bay below. Our spaniel was very keen 

 after woodcock, bustling about untiringly, his stumpy tail never 

 at rest for a moment, but the retriever's fancy inclined more to 

 rabbits, which he seemed to prefer to all else. He was very 



