but a dull, windy, showery day was indispensable, so none would look at mine.

I gave them an hour's rest, and during this interval had an account of a Loch Fine herring-fisher's life, from Angus, a frank athletic young man, the skipper and part owner of a boat. The fleet of scows, which are always hauled up, high and dry, to refit after the season is over, were all launching at present, and Angus meant to set sail in ten days. When shooting their nets, they had their choice of the best herrings to eat; for when they sold them "by the dizen, the warst made up the coont, and fetched the same price as the best." In the creeks and lochs where they anchored, they could always get milk from the shepherds' sheelings and bothies scattered along the banks, which milk from the little Highland cattle, grazed in the sheltered straths and glens, was "as rich as cream every drap o't." Some of the fishermen, he said, "indulged in dirt;" which luxury, however, he strictly prohibited in his boat.

It was now time to take to my rod again, and go over all the open places with the fly. Another trout actually rose and hooked at the same spot as the former one; but in straining to prevent his entanglement in the weeds, his hold broke. The "weedy loch" is a novelty to most anglers, and well worth a visit on that account.

* Various sizes of herring frequent different lochs. They are called 'skulls ;" and the Loch Fine skull is so much larger than the others that five hundred go to a cran, while seven hundred from Loch Long are required to make it.

GROUSE AND BLACK GAME SHOOTING

GROUSE-SHOOTING, when the season begins, and our moors are thronged by ardent sportsmen from all parts of the kingdom, although requiring some tact and skill, is mere child's play compared to what it becomes when the birds are wild and wary.

In the month of August or September, a few general rules may enable a good shot, upon a tolerable moor, to load his game-carrier. He should commence upon the farthest end of his range, giving his dogs the wind, and select some part of the moor, near the centre, to which he must endeavour to drive all his packs. His follower should be a good marker,* active and intelligent in comprehending his least signal, and always ready, when the dogs point, to place himself so as to prevent the birds taking a wrong direction. After having skirmished in

* In marking grouse, when you can no longer distinguish them from the brown heather, still let your eye follow their course, as the flapping of their wings when they light is much longer discernible than the rapid motion of their flight.

this way until about two or three o'clock, he may send for a fresh couple of his oldest and most experienced dogs, and, with the greatest care, begin to beat this reserved ground. If the day is favourable, and he has not strangely mismanaged, he ought to make bloody work. Should his range be along the steep side of a mountain, the birds are much less likely to leave the ground; when raised, they will probably (unless he is beating up and down the hill, which is neither an easy nor good way) fly straight along the mountain-side, and the young grouse-shooter might suppose would drop down upon a line with the place they rose from. But no such thing the pack, after getting out of sight, before lighting will take a turn, and fly a considerable way either to the right or left. The sportsman must judge by the wind,* nature of the ground, &c., which direction they have taken: if he can see the way their heads are turned just when going out of sight, he may also form a shrewd guess; but if he does not find them on the one side, he must try the other. Should he have the whole of a detached hill, even if a small range, the birds are so unwilling to leave it at the beginning of the season that they will often fly round and round until he has completely broken them: no finer opportunity than this for filling the bag. Early in the season, when an unbroken pack is found at evening feed, if the birds do not rise together, too much care

* If high, grouse are very apt to fly with it, unless they have some stronger motive to the contrary.

cannot be taken to search the ground. They often wander a good way from each other, and after hearing a shot will lie till they are almost trod upon.

On some of our moors, grouse are as plentiful as partridges in the preserved turnip-fields of Norfolk: no man would then break his beat to follow a pack; but let him select the lowest and most likely ground, as near the centre of his range as possible, for his evening shooting. Grouse, and indeed all game, when raised, generally fly to lower ground, and when they begin to move about on the feed, are more easily found by the dogs; for which reason the evening is always the most successful time of the day.*

The experienced grouse-shooter well knows how little it will avail him to attempt to find out the best part of a moor with which he is unacquainted, by a distant coupd'œil, or by theory, however plausible. On the same range the packs will be strongest and most numerous

* Should the sportsman knock down an old cock and hen, and afterIwards have the mortification to see the " 'squeaking" pack rise all round him, my advice is not to massacre them from the idea that, if left alone, they must necessarily die a more cruel death. I know most keepers will say that the young birds would starve, and I was of the same opinion; but I began to doubt the truth of it some time since, and a few years ago had an opportunity of proving its fallacy. On a part of my moor where the birds were very scarce, I got a point, and after killing a brace was proceeding to pick them up, when the young pack rose, five in number, as decided "squeakers" as ever struck remorse into the callous heart of the shooter. I at once determined to ascertain whether poults left in so unprotected a state must die. So, after ranging the ground most carefully for a considerable distance, to be certain there was no other pack

one year on the top of the hill, another on the brow, and a third on the flat at the foot, and this often without any assignable reason. A man who chooses his range by rule will be as likely to fix on the worst as the best. The only plan, supposing he has neglected to make himself acquainted with the ground before the 12th of August, is to find out from the shepherds where the packs are most plentiful, and concert measures accordingly. It often happens that, if the hatching-time is very rainy, the best packs may be found on the brow of a hill, from being less exposed to the wet; and in a dry sultry season the best places to range are the flats between the hills, or even the tops, if dotted with "peat-hags."* The very reverse,

however, may be the case if there are few mossy springs or "peat-hags" on the flat or top, and if the hill-side is supplied with water for the young packs by a constant succession of little brooks. It is impossible for a stranger to find out these minutiae without question

near, I left them undisturbed for eight days. At the end of that time I found and shot two of them, not at all fallen off in condition, and quite large enough to count in the day's return of the slain. These poults were not in company, but at a little distance from each other. It therefore appears to me that their great danger is from vermin, missing the warning cry of the old birds when an enemy approaches. There can be no doubt of its being both cruel and destructive to the young brood to murder their protectors; but should the sportsman unfortunately do so, and not discover his mistake till too late, he had better give them the chance of escaping vermin than shoot them out of humanity, erroneously supposing that they cannot but die of starvation.

* Places where peats have been "cast" or dug out, in which the moss water collects, and affords drink to the grouse. Sometimes these "hags"