GROUSE SHOOTING.
H EATHERWARD HO! Ten days have we got into the month of August 1895, and we are bound for the land of heather and bracken, bannocks and brochan, the country of brown heath and shaggy wood, according to Sir Walter Scott; the land of the midnight moon, according to Burns, who many a night tried to count Luna's horns as they shone above the Lugar moors. For a week the porters at Euston, St. Pancras, and King's Cross have been kept busy, and there is a look of anxiety on the face of the officials which plainly says, "I wish this Scotch rush was over." What with the crush of American tourists, who have done every corner of ancient London, walked down Fleet- street, and drunk the uninebriating cup in the haunts of Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith, wept over Shakespeare's grave at Stratford, and are hurrying off to see where Rob Roy sleeps soundly beneath the heather under the braes of Balquither, the season this year has tried the mind of the average railway official exceed. ingly. Fifty years ago a good old-fashioned carpet-bag and a guncase were all a sportsman wanted when he set out for the Highlands. Now he needs almost the half of a guard's van to himself, the other half for the bandboxes and travelling gear of the wife and family. Every year sees some fresh variety. At one time it was lawn-tennis bats and nets ; last year it was golf clubs and this year there have been any number of " Battersea bikes," notwithstanding the fact that the owner of one of the deer forests has trained his dog to bicyclist-stopping by running alongside and placing a short ash spoke in the wheels. Different all this from the old Bradfield Buckle Ticklers, as they were called, who went north to the Yorkshire fells forty years ago in their dogcarts to shoot, tic, and wrangle for grouse on an £8 weekly ticket. Numerous ad- ventures on these upward journeys have since been woven into literature, but all such romances disappeared with the stage- coach, the post-boy, and the half-way inn. Still there are
Supplement No. 5.-GROUSE, PARTRIDGE, AND BLACK GAME.
missing
PERCY R CRAFT SHAIN Eng.