370 



Dunottur, liis own place near Stonehaven, a distance of eighty miles, 

 there to shoot forty brace of grouse and return to Feloar in a day. 

 He started soon after midnight, and with relays of horses arrived at 

 Dunottur. By 9 a.m. he had his birds bagged. He then changed 

 clothes on the hillside, and riding the same horses he reached Feloar 

 about 8 p.m. Thus in less than twenty hours he rode 160 miles and 

 shot forty brace of grouse. It rained during part of the time, and 

 some fifteen miles of the ride was over ground without a road. 



In October, 1823, there was a great match shot off. It originated 

 by Sir Wm. Maxwell backing himself to find a man who would shoot 

 100 brace of partridge in one day over his estate in Wigtownshire. 

 He asked Lord Kennedy to do it for him, but, after pronouncing it 

 impossible, his lordship backed himself to shoot partridges two days 

 in Scotland against Mr. W. Coke two days in Norfolk, chance of 

 weather to be run by both parties. 



Lord Kennedy was disappointed the first day in the ground he 

 intended to shoot over and had to take ground of Sir Wm. Maxwell's 

 at Moureith, which had already been shot. Nor could he begin till 

 11 a.m. He shot that day between forty and fifty brace. Coke, 

 shooting the same day at Holkham, got ninety-three brace. 



On the second day the " one hundred brace match " was to be 

 decided, but it did not come oflf for some days after the first. Sir 

 William wanted Lord Kennedy to look over the ground the day before 

 but he would not do so. Xor on the day would he use the steady old 

 dogs provided by Sir William, but insisted upon using his own which 

 were never before shot over except on moors. Moreover, he would not 

 go to coveys marked into whins nor take any advice from the keepers, 

 eeeming to think that it would not be fair, although Mr. Val. Maher, 

 Mr. Coke's umpire, agreed that he ought to do so. 



By 11.30, when they halted for refreshment, Lord Kennedy had sixty 

 brace in the bag and the best of the ground still before him ; but 

 instead of taking the advice profi*ered, he persevered over a line of 

 bare grass fields, with the result that he lost the match he had with 

 Mr. Coke and also that for Sir William Maxwell. As it was he got 

 ninety-three and a half brace, while Mr. Coke, at Holkham again, got 

 niaety-six. A great many dead and wounded birds were picked up a 

 day or two after on the ground over which Lord Kennedy shot, and it 

 was estimated he actually shot, though he did not bag, one hundred and 

 twenty brace that day. No one had the least doubt, nor had his lord- 

 ship himself, that he would have bagged far over the hundred brace 

 had he not been so self-willed. 



In September, 1822, Lord Garlies backed himself to shoot fifty brace 

 of partridge in a day over his father's ground in Wigtownshire— ^Aer^! 

 to he 710 ijreparation whatever. He went out with two guns and his 

 pointers on a wet and stormy morning, and by ten o'clock had only 

 fifteen brace in the bag. The wind soon after fell and the sun came 

 out, and as the birds lay well he had before three o'clock between forty 



