3© tVILD SPORTS OP THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



marksman ought to kill nearly every bird that he shoots at 

 early in the season, \vhen th^ birds sit close, fly slpwjy, and are 

 easily found. . 'At the end of the season, when the coveys are 

 .scattered far and wide, and the grouse rise and fly wildly, it 

 requires quick shooting and good walking to make up a 

 handsome bag ; but how much better worth killing are the 

 birds at this time of year than in August. If my reader will 

 wadsi 'through some leaves of an old note-book, I will describe 

 -the kind of s.hooting that, in my opinion, renders the sporting 

 in the Highlands far preferable, to any other that Great Britajn 

 can afford.^ , • 



October 20ih.- — Determined to shoot across to Malcolm's 

 shealing, at the head of the river, twelve miles distant ; to sleep 

 there ; and kill some ptarmigan the next day. 



.For, the first mile of our walk we passed through the old 

 fir woods, where the sun seldom penetrates. In the different 

 grassy glades we saw several roe, but none within shot. A 

 fir-cone falling to the ground made me look up, and I saw a 

 marten cat running like ^squirrel from branch to branch. The 

 moment the little animal, saw that my eye. was on him he 

 stopped short, and curling himself up in the fork of a branch, 

 peered down on me. Pretty as he was, I fired at hirn. He 

 sprang froni ,his hiding-place, and fell half-way down, but 

 catching at a branch, clung to it for a minute, holding on with 

 his fore-paws. ., I was just going to fire at him again, when he 

 lost his hold, and came down on my dogs' heads, who soon 

 despatched him, wounded as he was. One of the dogs had 

 learned by some means to be an excellent vermin-killer, though 

 steady and staunch at game. As we were just leaving the 

 wood a woodcock rose, which I killed. Our way took us up 

 the rushy course of a burn. Both dogs came to a dead point 

 near the stream, and then drew for at least a quarter of a mile, 

 and just as my patience began to be exhausted, a brace of 

 magnificent old blackcocks rose, but out of shot. One of them 

 came back right over our heads at a good height, making for 

 ■the wood. As he flew quick down the wind, I aimed nearly a 



\ The mpdein practipe and science of grouse-driving was still undiscovered -in the 

 I days of Mr. St. John. Readers who wish , to become acquainted with the literature of 

 (this subject are referred to the Radnv'nton Library, and to Mr. Speedy's Sport in the 

 flighland! and Lowlands of Scotland, ^ 



