be the object of your pursuit, sitting on walls or mounds, and other bare dry places. The wind must be very carefully considered, and the stalk conducted with as much care as if you were after deer. If you alarm other birds or beasts, the blackcocks, like deer, will take alarm also, and though their sense of smell is not so keen as, their eyesight is undoubtedly superior to, that of the nobler animal. It is often a good plan to employ your man, always granted that you can trust his discretion, to move about at a distance, and in a different direction, so as to distract their wary eyes while you creep upon them. As chances are few at this sport, and it is important to kill these old stagers, who live to an immense age, long after they have become utterly useless for stud purposes, I would advise you never to spare a sitting shot.

Of capercailzie shooting there is not much to be said. It is no doubt a beautiful sight to see these magnificent birds sailing past you as you stand in a clearing of the wood, and a very satisfactory thing to bring them down stone dead, as you can do if you hit them well forward. But as their flight is not long, the drives are not exciting, and beautiful as the bird may be he is not fit to eat in any shape but soup. Whatever you may do, the capercailzie will leave your ground or remain on it as they list, selecting their

favourite trees for residence, and being found perched there with monotonous regularity. They do not seem to acquire in Scotland (the only part of the British Islands where they can be found) even the wildness of habit which makes the pursuit of them so exciting in Germany and Austria. But as they that is, the cocks only, for a hen is never shot-are only pursued in the latter countries in the breeding season, and are, in fact, slain in the act of carolling forth the song of love, I confess to but little sympathy for the sport.

But when you have to deal with one that is driven, to you, be not deceived by his size or the comparatively slow beat of his wings. He is going fully as fast as a blackcock or a grouse, and unless you hit him in the head you need not trouble to fire. I once missed five old cocks in one drive, none of them more than thirty-five yards off, from misjudging their pace, and probably also in some degree their distance from me. All that can be said about them has been admirably put by Mr. Millais in his book and by Lord Charles Kerr in the Badminton Library.2

Last, but not least, we must breathe the keen air and tread the summer snows of the high tops, while we attack the shy and graceful ptarmigan.

1 Game Birds and Shooting Sketches.

? Moor and Marsh, p. 53.

The glorious scenery which surrounds the haunts of these beautiful birds makes the pursuit of them especially fascinating. The splendid air and brilliant light, the panoramic view, the shifting cloud and mist, the dizzy height and wondrous silence-these weird surroundings are so fine that we almost forget our wish to slay the creatures that inhabit them, and probably few men have descended from the ptarmigan hill in the evening without a pang of regret at having carried their predatory instinct into these picturesque solitudes.

At first you cannot see the birds against the stones, so closely do they resemble the pale grey rock, white spa, and speckled moss which form their background; but presently they move and run before you, seeming quite tame, but fifteen yards away. In another second they are all in the air together, their white wings flashing in the sun, they have doubled in a bunch along the hill, and now, well separated from one another, are sailing away at a terrific pace, while you sorrowfully eject your empty and profitless cartridge cases. must advance upon them with the gun held ready, almost up to the shoulder, and as they all turn together, the killing moment, try and knock over a brace cleverly, though the second bird will take you all you know to stop.

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