to London, and the other great markets of Liverpool, Hull, &c., &c. We may guess at the scale upon which the English game markets are supplied, when we learn that a single Norwegian boor will snare form 500 to 1000 ptarmigan in a winter. In one parish-a roomy one -in Lapland, 60,000 birds were killed in one winter. The birds of all kinds are kept in a frozen state, until the dealers arrive; of whom one will purchase and dispose of 50,000 ptarmigan in a season. This looks marvellous; but if we consider the numbers that come to England alone, the statement becomes quite credible. The birds are sent over by the same boats that, from the ports on the west coast of Norway, supply London with that great Cockney delicacy, lobsters; and Mr Yarrell states that, "on one occasion, late in the spring of 1839, one dealer shipped 6,000 ptarmigan for London, 2,000 for Hull, and 2,000 for Liverpool; and that this spring, (1840,) one salesman, in Leadenhall market, received 15,000 ptarmigan that had been consigned to him; and, during the same week, another receiv ed 700 capercailye, and 560 black grouse. A capercailye, which sells for 28. in Drammen or Drontheim, sells for 10s. in London; and a black cock sells for 8d., which, in London, brings 3s. 6d., and, we think, in other markets, as much as 5s. and 6s. Red grouse, the Tetras Scoticus, which are as national as are comfort and plum-pudding, are, of course, unknown in these northern countries. The range of the red grouse tribe is from the Orkneys and Caithness-for they have not reached Shetland-to the northern counties of England. Red grouse are also found in Wales and in Ireland. The quantity of red grouse sent to the London market, from the second week of August to the first week of March, must be very great, as the supply is constant. We should not, however, be very much surprised if both Scottish and Norwegian ptarmigan occasionally figured on London dinner tables as red grouse. Yet their numbers are certainly great; and the increasing slaughter of every new season does not appear to diminish them; at least if we may believe the accounts of those bagged in the newspapers. Mr Yarrell's fifty brace in a day in Inverness-shire, in 1801, and forty brace killed for a wager, still in a day, more recently, on the Yorkshire moors, by the Earl of Strathmore's gamekeeper, were great feats in their way, but they may still be matched. The red grouse of Wales are said to be the largest, those of Yorkshire the smallest known; though, everywhere, individuals vary in size. On the eastern coast of Scotland, they are darker in colour, as well as larger, than on the western coast, where they breed somewhat earlier, probably from the greater mildness of the climate. The ptarmigan is the smallest of the grouse tribes: it is found only in the highest range of the mountains of Scotland, and in the Scottish isles, though it was formerly found in the mountain ridges of "rocky Cumberland" and in Westmoreland. The habits of these mountain-birds are curious and interesting. They are much less shy and wary than the red grouse; having less experience of the arts of their foe. The ptarmigan, unlike the red grouse, is found on most of the elevated mountain ranges of the Continent. In Spain it is called the white partridge. It is also found in Russia, and as far north as any of our exploratory expeditions have penetrated. In Norway, as we have seen, ptarmigan abound. They are caught there by what, in Scotland, is called a gin, or girn-a custom practised at home; and Mr Yarrell has found the horse-hair round their necks, in the London market, by which they were noosed in their native places. Of late years, he has observed the same evidence of unfair play on the necks of red grouse, probably caught in the same way that birds are snared by the Norwegian peasants; that is, by sliding-loops of horse-hair set across their path or runs in the heather. The partridge falls more under ordinary observation than the grouse tribes; and many beautiful instances are given by Mr Yarrell of their parental instincts, or affections, in which a high degree of intelligence is apparent. Besides the murderous battues, which mark the relapse of the higher orders of England into barbarism, and poaching, which equally marks the misery and vitiated state of the lower orders; very large numbers of partridges are killed in the unexceptionable manner of fair sport. For a wager of 200 sovereigns a-side, a nephew of Mr Coke, (now the Earl of Leicester,) in one day, shot, in Norfolk, on his uncle's estate, eighty brace and a-half; and, on a subsequent day, eighty-eight brace, and five pheasants. The birds were beat up for him; and, as far as possible, driven into his hands. His opponent, Lord Kennedy, shot on the estate of Monreith, in Scotland, and, on the first day, bagged fifty, and, on the second day, eighty-two brace. This was great work for Scotland, which, for partridges, is not yet quite a Norfolk. Mr Yarrell never ventures a word about the injury done to the farmers by pheasants and partridges, nor of the heartburnings, the crime, and misery, of which they are made the innocent cause, though it lay quite in his way. The red-legged partridge is comparatively little known in Britain, and it is less esteemed than the common sort, either by sportsmen, who find it difficult to shoot, or for the table. It is not an indigenous bird, though occasionally found in the southern east-coast counties. The red-legged partridge is found in the Channel Islands, and in the South of France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. During the Peninsular War, shooting redlegged partridges was the frequent amusement of Wellington and his officers. The great bustard is another of Mr Yarrell's birds. It is now become so rare in England, as to be carried about in menageries for exhibition. It is interesting from its size, habits, and rarity. Since wild birds' eggs became an article of luxury and traffic, this bird, with other species, has nearly disappeared. The bustard used to be hunted with pointers and greyhounds. In the 16th century, they were equally esteemed, at solemn banquets, with the swan and the crane. The flesh is still highly esteemed. In Germany, the bustard is hunted with rifles; the sportsmen, as the bird is very difficult to approach, pursuing it somewhat in the cautious manner of hunters stalking deer. In winter, bustards form into flocks of from forty to two hundred-a formidable number, when their great size is considered. The length of the male bird figured in Yarrell's page, which is considered a very fine specimen, is forty-five inches. The female is nine inches shorter. She wants the lateral plumes on the chin or moustache of the male, though with age they grow. She wants also the pouch, which has commonly been set down as the bustard's waterflask, though its use is not yet fully ascertained. The lesser bustard is only an occasional winter visiter with us, and its nest or eggs have never been found. It is rare over nearly all Europe, and only found in great numbers at the foot of the Caucasus, and near the shores of the Caspain. To return from birds to Oakleigh's modes of shooting them, which, in the passing month, is of more interest: These he introduces by an entertaining preface, discoursing on Archery, Falconry, the Forest Laws, the Forest itself, the Chase, and the Park. Some consider the old forest laws of our Norman conquerors rather more tyrannical than the game laws of our modern aristocratic legislators, as executed by the squirearchy in Quarter Sessions assembled; but much may be said on both sides. Were any one to say to us the constitution of Great Britain is essentially democratic, we should be contented to reply, "Look at the Game Laws." Look, too, at the change of times and opinions since the young Shakspeare, to whom every bird that flew and fish that swam was free, was tempted to have a sly shot at the fal low deer of the Lucys. To the game laws of France, and the battueing propensities of its noblesse, the Revolution has been ascribed; of which their cruel and insulting severity had certainly prepared one wild element, in the maddened passions of the alienated and embruted peasantry. But the game laws of Great Britain are doubly stringent and irritating to what they were at the epoch of the French Revolution. These are things to be pondered; and also the difference of the old times, when a peasant might have a shot anywhere, save in those tabooed places-the forest, the chase, and the park, and the present, in which to have a gun in his possession is assumed as a proof of crime. There are killers of birds and beasts in all parts of the world, and battue shooters both in England and Scotland; but still Great Britain alone is the native land of sportsmen, whence they carry their love of this species of recreation into all countries. Oakleigh, accordingly, gives Englishmen some useful general rules for pursuing their amusements in India and in the new southern colonies. Of home sports with the gun, the noblest are deer-stalking and grouse-shooting. Shooting fallow deer-though knowledge and practice are required properly to single out the victim and secure him, without injuring his companions-is, when compared with deer-stalking, like shooting chickens in a farm-yard, instead of shooting woodcock. The surest and least cruel aim is through the neck. He is shot with the rifle; and, when wounded and separated from the herd, the dogs are slipped.-There he lies, his family around him in serene repose, in his lordly park, under the shadow of the old patrician trees, as little dreaming of rifles as of the election dinners or city feasts that demand his haunches. in the height and length of his leap "none but himself much of his knowledge from old Highland fo- The deer-stalker's dogs, which are always held in leash until a wounded animal is detached from the herd, should, so far as practicable, combine the nose of the bloodhound with the speed of the greyhound, and run mute. The deer-stalker has recourse to a thousand manœuvres to approach a herd or solitary stag. The animals are usually descried at a long distance, either by the naked eye, or by the aid of an achromatic telescope, and the mode of approaching them entirely depends upon the situation in which they are discovered. Should it seem impracticable to steal upon them while at rest, the stalkers, armed with rifles, wait in the defiles through which the deers are expected to pass, whilst the attendants make a circuitous movement to get beyond the deer, and drive them in the direction required. The deer-stalker, besides being an excellent shot, should have good judgment of ground and a hardy frame, combined with the patience and power to undergo extreme fatigue and privation. When the red deer is fired at, he is usually at a considerable distance, and perhaps bounding away at full speed. Behind the shoulder, therefore, is the favourite mark. "In killing deer," says Mr Maxwell, "it is necessary to select the head, or aim directly behind the shoulder. A body-wound may eventually destroy the animal, but the chances are that he will carry off the ball." Mr Scrope, whose experience and success in deer-stalking render his remarks valuable, says, "the most perfect shots and celebrated sportsmen never succeed in killing deer without practice; indeed, at first, they This are quite sure to miss the fairest running shots. arises, I think, from their firing at distances to which they have been wholly unaccustomed, and is no reflection upon their skill. It is seldom that you fire at a less distance than a hundred yards, and this is as near as you would wish to get. The usual range will be between this and two hundred yards, beyond which, as a general rule, I never think it prudent to fire, lest I should hit the wrong animal, though deer may be killed at a much greater distance. Now the sportsman who has been accustomed to shot guns, is apt to fire with the same sort of aim that he takes at a grouse or any other common game; thus he invariably fires behind the quarry; for he does not consider that the ball, having three, four, or perhaps five times the distance to travel that his shot has, will not arrive at its destination nearly so soon; consequently, in a cross shot he must keep his rifle more in advance. The exact degree, as he well knows, will depend upon the pace and remoteness of the object. Deer go much faster than they appear to do, and their pace is not uniform, like the flying of a bird; but they pitch in running, and this pitch must be calculated upon." Although the red deer has not The dreadful plunge of the concealed tiger, nor charges he like the maimed lion, or elephant, or buffalo at bay, he possesses qualities which render his death as difficult to achieve as that of any of the foregoing quadrupeds; since to the gracefulness of an antelope he unites the agility of a chamois, the eye of a lynx, the nose of a vulture, the ear of a hare, the vigilance He can swim like of a bustard, the cunning of a fox. descends into the tremendous glen beneath, fords the Telescopes are, of course, a late Saxon innovation, and we should think hardly fair in forest law. They, moreover, too much resemble the train-bands reviewed in a shower under a canopy of umbrellas; or a Highlander carrying the same modern invention over his Lochaber axe. Roe-deer shooting is conducted in the same manner as shooting hares in covert. While the covers are beaten, the shooters, placed at certain points, fire at the roes as they dash past them, with large buck shot. They are mostly seen in pairs, or bevies of five, six, or seven. The red-deer is sometimes unharboured in cover; but for the most part his lair is on the plain or mountain-side; his horns seem to unfit The roe beds in him for making way through thickets. the woods; it is essentially the deer of the woods, being seldom found so much as three miles from cover. It • An idea of the height and steepness of some of the forest-mountains may be formed by the fact, that from a dozen to twenty deer are sometimes destroyed at once a sea-fowl-in speed he will outstrip the race-horse-and | by a fall of an avalanche, in winter. does much mischief to young trees, and the labours of the agriculturist. When discovered in growing corn, it is usually shot with a rifle. In cultivated districts, interspersed with wood and rock, the roe abounds, and it is looked upon by the farmer as a greater nuisance than the rabbit is in the South. The roe-buck has in general three points to each horn, sometimes four or even more, and sometimes only one. In August, the buck chases the doe, for the purpose, as is supposed, of making her give up suckling her kids; and so determined are the bucks on their object, that they will chase a doe for several hours without inter. mission round some favourite "knowe." We should have some slight doubt of the buck and doe limiting themselves so closely to one particular "knowe," in pursuing the evening game of the southern lads and lasses, of " Boglie about the stacks," which is here exactly described. However, here the roe bounds on some wild quest or other. Oakleigh is learned in the structure and powers of guns, and the qualities of powder and shot; so, for the benefit of some of the late arrivals at Dalwhinnie, Fort Augustus, and the other great stations, we shall at once TAKE AIM. When the dog points, or when birds rise near to the shooter, he should immediately draw back both hammers with the right thumb; but should the birds rise at a considerable distance, to save time, he need only cock one barrel, as in this case he has only to fire once. He should never be in haste. It is more prudent to let the bird escape than to fire hastily. If on open ground, he should not fire until the bird is more than twenty yards distant. He should be deliberate in bringing up the piece to his shoulder, and in making it to bear on the object, but the moment he has brought it to bear, the finger should act in co-operation with the eye, the eye being kept open the while, so that the shooter may see whether the bird falls, or feathers fall from it; for if he does not see it distinctly at the moment of firing, there is something defective in his system of taking aim. The shooter, when learning, should never aim directly at the body of a hare on foot, or of a bird on the wing. This precaution is scarcely necessary when the motion of the object is slow, but by habituating himself to it on all occasions, he will the sooner become an adept. His mark should be the head, the legs, or a wing, if within twenty yards. When further off, he should make some allowance, according to the distance and speed of the object moving. His aim should be at the head of a bird rising or crossing-the legs of a bird flushed on an eminence and moving downwards from him-the wing of a bird flying from him in an oblique direction. His aim should be at the head of a hare, in whatever way she may be moving. The same rules apply when the object is more than twenty paces distant from the shooter, making allowance for the speed. Thus, for a partridge crossing, the allowance of aim before it with a detonator, at twenty paces, will be one inch-at thirty paces two inches-at fifty paces five inches at fifty-five paces seven inches. Half this allowance will be proper when the bird moves in an oblique direction. When an object moves directly from the shooter, at more than twenty paces distance, he should fire a little above it. When a bird or hare approaches the shooter directly, he should not aim at it until it has passed him, or has turned aside. The moment it has altered its course the gun should be brought up, and no time should be lost in firing. It is not easy at all times to form a correct idea of the distance of a bird from the gun.. . It is amusing sometimes to hear persons talk, after they have been watched, of the distances at which they have effected their shots; they ever think the game so much farther off than it really was. The sportsman who has not convinced himself by actual measurement, often seems to be labouring under a species of hallucination when speaking of his distances. If the sportsman will take aim alternately at objects on his right, on his left, on the ground, and in the air, without moving his body or taking his gun from the shoulder, he will at once see the difficulty of keeping his eye directly behind the breech. To be a proficient in shooting, he must in some way be able to do that mechanically; for, when aiming at a moving object, his attention can only be paid to placing the end of the gun on that object. When bringing up a gun to the shoulder in a gunmaker's shop, it is easy to bend the head down to the exact spot for looking along the sight-plate; but it is very different when shooting at birds on the wing. The best way to prove whether a stock suits, or, in other words, whether the user of it can bring it up, as it were mechanically and without an effort, to the proper place, is to fire hastily, on a dark night, at a lighted candle placed against a wall, at about forty paces distance. The main point, then, in taking aim, is to keep the head down to the stock, and the eye low behind the breech. The sportsman who, from habit or practice, can invariably bring his eye down to the same place, and keep it steadily there, so that he may always take aim from the same starting-point, will distance all competitors. This we fully believe, as well as that generally in shooting, as in many other things, "an ounce of mother-wit is worth a pound of clergy," In wild-fowl shooting, Oakleigh's great authority is Colonel Hawker; and one of his many merits is the sagacity and freedom with which he seizes and turns to popular account the knowledge of others, on subjects with which personally he has not much experience. From a foreign source he has gained the following summary of canine education, which may, we think, be found valuable to the teachers of Infant and Irish schools. at the word "down;" this must be done before he is taken As The first lesson, and the one on which the breaker's success chiefly depends, is that of teaching the dog to drop into the field. Tie a strong cord to his neck, about eighteen yards long, and peg one end into the ground. Then make the dog crouch down, with his nose between his front feet, calling out in a loud voice "down." often as he attempts to rise, pull him to the ground, and repeat the word "down" each time. When he lies perfectly quiet while you are standing by him, walk away, and if he attempt to follow you, walk back, and make him "down" again, giving him a cut or two with the whip. This lesson must be repeated very often, and will take some trouble before it is properly inculcated. When once learned it is never forgotten, and if properly taught in the beginning, will save an infinity of trouble in the end. He ought never to be suffered to rise until touched by the hand. This lesson should be practised before his meals, and he will perform it much better as he expects his food; and never feed him till you are perfectly satis fied with his performance. After you have been flogging him, always part friends, and never let him escape while you are chastising him, at least, if he does, do not pursue him; as if he sees (which he soon will) that he is the quicker runner of the two, all discipline will be at an end. When he has become tolerably steady, and learned to come in to the call, and to drop to the hand, he must be taught to range and quarter his ground; a thing which is seldom seen in perfection. On some good brisk morning, choose a nice piece of ground, where you are likely to find. Take care to give him the wind, i. e. to let him have the wind blowing in his face: wave your hand with "Hey, on good dog," and let him run off to the right hand to the distance of about eighty yards." (We suggest thirty.) "Call him in, and, by another wave of the hand, let him go off to the same distance to the left. Walk straight forward with your eye always on him. Go on and let him keep crossing you from right to left, and vice versa, calling him in when at the limit of his range. This is a difficult lesson, and requires great nicety in teaching. Never let him hunt the same ground twice over. Always have your eye on him, and watch every motion." On partridge-shooting we shall cite only one hint, for the benefit of all whom it may concern; namely, those who must maintain, but who dare not shoot, the birds. The most certain method of driving partridges from a farm is, to disturb them night after night at their jucking-place; which is usually in a meadow, where the aftermath is suffered to grow, or in a field rough with rushes, fern, thistles, or heather, adjoining to a corn-field. Their jucking-place means the restingplace of the covey during the night, called the roosting-place of birds that perch on trees. Pheasant, hare, rabbit, snipe, and woodcock shooting follow in sequence; which last pastime has been greatly shorn of its difficulty and glory of grouse-shooting, the Scottish maxim eminently holds, that "Stickin does not go by strength, but by the guiding of the gully," that, in short, experience, and the facility of long practice, are the chief elements of the sportsman's good fortune. Oakleigh lays down one rule, which we specify, as it ensures what we conceive the main charm of fowling, at least to the emancipated serfs of colleges, clubs, courts of law, and benches of legislation, and of the bustle and tumult of city life. This is the bliss of solitude, absolute loneliness; a taste of which occasionally is as necessary to the mind as salt to animal health. The Highland moors thus become the lickingplaces of those sportsmen to whom shooting is a relaxation and pleasure, and not a mere trade. Oakleigh's rule, which embraces our condition, is, that Grouse shooters should separate and range singly; and have no noisy attendants, nor any dogs that require rating. The sport cannot be carried on too quietly. If the shooter throws off before eight o'clock, which it is not prudent to do unless there are many guns on the moors, or foul weather is expected in the afternoon, he should run only one dog as long as the heather is wet, afterwards two, and in the afternoon three dogs. In wet weather, one dog is quite sufficient. If hot weather, we advise rest from eleven to two. If the shooter have not exhausted himself during the middle of the day, he will best fill his bag in the afternoon; he may not, indeed, then find so many, but those he does find will be dispersed birds that will almost lie to be trodden on. An old shooter thus, on a dry afternoon following a wet morn ing, will sometimes load himself or his attendant, after the less experienced have left the moor, disgusted, with scarcely a bird in their possession. The flight of grouse is generally about half a mile. A grouse will drop suddenly, when out of sight of the shoot. er, on some hill side, perhaps forty or fifty yards from the highest part. Nine times out of ten the grouse alights on a hill side slanting from the shooter, or, in other words, on that side of the hill, or ridge, or sloping ground, which is farthest from the shooter. It is useless to attempt to range the whole of a moor: the sportsman's time will be much better occupied in traversing the same ground over again and again, assuming he knew how to choose his ground. When ranging a moor with which he is totally unacquainted, the best thing he can do is to walk along the brow or side of a hill, (for nearly all moors are either mountainous or broken uneven ground,) keeping about forty or fifty yards from the summit of any rising ground: not only broods but single birds alight more frequently in such a situation than in any other, especially after being disturbed. Much time is lost in ranging flats and the extreme heights of hills and ridges. The side, under the wind, of these lesser hills, which on nearly all moors is intersected by rivulets, and which has a pretty good covering of young heather, is the very best by the modern improvements of the fowling-line of range that can be recommended, care being taken piece; but grouse-shooting, were it but for its rarity, the season in which it begins, and, above all, the scenery amidst which it is pursued, eclipses all other kinds of fowling. Grouse ought to be remarkably plentiful this year, as the winter was mild; and the spring, the time of hatching, was the driest and finest that is remembered; nor is the subsequently cold and wet summer likely to have given that degree of vigour to the young birds, which in warm and dry seasons renders them too strong in their flight for the inexperienced sportsman. The present year will therefore be peculiarly favourable to young sportsmen in the Highlands. Yet, to keep within fifty yards from where the declivity commences. By winding round the hills in this manner, the shooter does not fatigue himself near so much as by continually crossing the ravines and climbing directly up the hills. When the grouse-shooter throws off on an extensive moor, on which, or on the moors adjoining, there are numerous parties of shooters, we would direct him, whenever the wind is high, to make for the leeward side of the moor. Grouse do not fly with the wind on all occasions: but whenever they happen to do so, their flights are longer than when they face it; and, when going across wind, their flight has ever a tendency to the lee side. Thus, when every brood has been flushed several times, the windward side of the moors becomes deserted, and the leeward side the resort of both game and shooters. Whatsoever species of game he is in pursuit of, the shoot |