Season 1888.
All things come to an end, and the seventeen years lease was drawing to a close.
This would be my last season, and I shot at Dalnawillan with two of my sons and a friend.
My family did not go down.
Unfortunately I was very lame with rheumatism in one leg, and could only get about a few hours every other day, puddling over the near beats and working the dogs myself, with a boy to lead a spare dog, and a gillie to carry the birds.
The other party were out every day, weather permitting, two guns to the party, and taking turn and turn about.
Disease was now again getting due. We had some indication the previous season, and this season we had them all over the moor—barren birds, small broods, a bad bird now and again; in fact, a repetition identical with the commencement of the attack of 1881, and about the same result as to bag, which, however, gave a fair amount of shooting.
On moors south and east there was little or no shooting; but Strathmore on the north was much better.
| Bag. | Dalnawillan. | Rumsdale. |
|---|---|---|
| Grouse | 816½ brace. | 500½ brace. |
| Sundries | 61 " | —— |
On the 13th I went over to Thurso to say good bye to old friends, and the next morning I was away south, thus terminating my grouse shooting days and my long and pleasant connection with Caithness and its people, and the wild moorlands of Dal-a-vhuilinn or the Miller's Dale.
[ A Hare Day.]
The blue, or alpine hare, is, as all Scotch sportsmen know, a great nuisance in grouse shooting over dogs.
Do what you will there is in every dog an innate longing to chase or point ground game in preference to birds, and if blue hares are shot upon the grouse moor in the sight of the dogs, nothing that you can do will prevent the dog from pointing or drawing on the track of other hares.
On well regulated moors blue hares are looked upon as vermin, and all possible are killed in the late winter months, when they are white, by the keeper, and sent to market; but they make very small prices, not more than 9d. to a 1s. after paying carriage.
When at Dalnawillan in October, before leaving it was the rule to have a hare driving day on Ben Alasky with two or three guns, the result being generally about ninety hares and a few brace of grouse, and the number killed have been included in the record of sundries.
All the gillies, boys, shepherds, &c., were on that occasion pressed into the service.
There were two hills adjoining one to the other, Ben Alasky and Glass Kerry, both about 1100ft. high, and both were driven.
The party started about 11 a.m. from the lodge, beaters and guns forming a line, taking the ground before them to about half way up Glass Kerry, getting on the way two or three hares and a brace or two of grouse.
Then the guns were sent forward to their posts.
The line of beaters sweep round the hill.
Perhaps fifteen to twenty hares may be had. Luncheon is then taken on the ridge connecting the two hills.
After luncheon the beaters in line start well at the bottom of Ben Alasky, gradually beating round and round in a spiral until they reach the summit.
It may take two hours.
It is the habit of the blue hare to mount the hill, but some few break back.
The guns are in three butts, the first butt on the summit of the hill, and the other two on the slope below.
Odd grouse skim over the butts and fall to a clever shot.
At times the hares come up in considerable numbers, and the single gun (no loader) gets hot; but if a hare escapes the one butt it gets across the fire of another butt, and so very little escapes.
Then comes the collection of the slain and crippled, and loading men and gillies with the slain.
The reader may say, Why not send a cart or pannier pony? simply because the peat moss of Caithness is too soft to carry a pony.
It was a pleasing little shoot, and the weather at that time of year being generally stormy, the outlook from the hill was very grand.
[ Remarks on the Outcome of Disease.]
A perusal of the foregoing reminiscences will show that grouse shooting, like other sports, is very uncertain, and that really good shooting cannot apparently be looked for in more than four seasons out of seven, consequent on the ravages of disease.
With the exception of portions of Southern Perthshire say the district west of Dunkeld, embracing the Breadalbane Moors, which for many years have had comparative immunity from disease, but will have it sooner or later, the moors of Aberdeen, Banff, Inverness, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness are attacked at pretty regular intervals, and an old and experienced hand may spot the years of disease pretty well in advance.
In Sutherlandshire the recovery is rather slower than in Caithness, and the period of good shooting rather less.
On the smaller moors on the north-east of Caithness mixed up with the arable land there is certainly very much less disease, and when the birds get a touch, it is called a bad breeding season; as the tenant of a very fair moor in that district put it, "We never have disease, but we had a season of poor shooting as the birds did not breed that year." Of course, that meant disease.
I take it that in that district, the climate being better, the ground carrying few birds and being sprinkled in patches mixed with arable, that the risk of contagion is less, besides which, from the tendency of birds to draw down from the higher to the lower grounds in the storms of winter, the gaps caused by disease get filled up.
The same remarks will apply to Orkney, and, more favourably still, excepting that they do not fill up from the higher ground; but in Orkney the moors are very small, and no great quantity of grouse.
Are we to draw our conclusion from the experience of previous years, not of one cycle, but of several.
If we are to avail ourselves of past experience, the inference derived is that disease does run in cycles, and that it is a provision of Providence to ensure the survival of the fittest, and thus prevent the gradual decadence of the grouse.
It would appear that grouse shooting runs in years pretty much thus:
1st year.—Say disease; shoot down and stamp out as far as possible.
2nd year.—A jubilee; but shoot old cocks.
3rd year.—A jubilee; but shoot old cocks.
4th year.—Moderate shooting; be careful not to overdo it to the serious detriment of the good years before you.
5th year.—} Grand shooting. Shoot down all
6th year.—} you can, and so get off all you can
7th year.—} before disease does it for you.
But if the moor be shot ever so lightly in the second and third years it is simply killing the goose for the golden egg, your moor will not recover its stock and give good shooting until the seventh year or the eve of the next cycle.
The laird will say, "Eh! I shall get breeding stock from my neighbours;" but what if his neighbours are at the same foolish game.
My own experience has been not to let a moor, excepting on lease, until I am quite certain that it can properly afford the number of birds to which I may limit it, and I think that I have pretty clearly shown that it will not afford birds at all in the first and second years, perhaps a few in the third, the killing of old cocks excepted, which should be done by the keeper.
The present modern practice of letting moors from year to year, quite irrespective of whether from the ravages of disease there are grouse to afford shooting, and so leading to the destruction of the little breeding stock that may exist, has ruined and destroyed the reputation of many fine moors that will carry heavy stocks of birds if properly treated.
They year after year yield little or no sport, and naturally get a bad repute until they are again caught by disease and shelved for further years.
The laird has to make up his mind to one of two options:
1. To let his moor on lease at a low reasonable rent; or
2. To retain his moorland, and nurse the birds until the moor is full, and then let at a higher rent either for one year or more.
Any other course is suicidal to him in the long run; he may deceive his client, and perhaps himself, and get a heavy rent for one year and then he is done.
In the season of 1883, with a full knowledge that the moor has been cleaned out with disease and over shooting in 1882, I was asked, will you let me Rumsdale with a limit of 150 brace for £100.
My reply was, that firstly there was not 150 brace upon the moor, and that if I let it I should be cheating him, and that if I did, shooting the little there was would do me far more damage by the loss of the breeding stock than the value of the £100, or three or four times the £100.
It is difficult to educate people to the knowledge of the fact that the breeding of grouse is like the breeding of other animals or birds, and that grouse are not in some mysterious way showered down by Providence like manna in the desert.
It is appreciated as regards pheasants, but appears that it has yet to be learned as regard grouse.
I have remarked that as a rule moors are more readily let, and higher rents are obtained in the disease year, the year following the cycle of three or four big years, than at any other period.
Men are jubilant and excited over the successes of the three or four previous years, the prestige and the glamour are fostered by those in the interest of letting, and folks are unwilling to believe, as I was in the season of 1866, that such magnificent sport can collapse almost at once to nothing.
Disappointments result for a couple of years or more, and then moors become very unsavoury, and really good places are on hand, and at moderate rents for the ensuing three or four years.
It is evident that if history is to repeat itself, that, looking at the cost of keeper and other expenses, it is cheaper to rent for three or four years at a high rent than to take for seven years at a low rent, taking your chance, or, more properly speaking, the certainty, of the fat and the lean.
Anyone about to take a moor of fair repute may, by taking the necessary trouble before he signs the agent's agreement to pay £500 or £1000 for what Providence may send him, ensure himself the sport represented by the high rent.
According to the amenities of the place—for the number of brace to be killed is not the only factor in fixing the price—the rent will vary from 10s. to 20s. a brace, and an intending tenant should not grudge it if he gets the sport.
Let the moor be run with dogs by a competent keeper, and he will tell you if there is sufficient breeding stock to breed the promised 1000 brace.
Then ascertain, positively and absolutely, when the last attack of disease occurred; it will be the year after the last successful season.
Then take the moor for a term of years, ending in the seventh year from the date of the disease year.
Those moors that suffer the most in their disease year, like the moor in Strathspey, referred to in Season 1871, will probably afford the heaviest shooting in their good years.
Grouse, of course, have other drawbacks besides disease.
If the moors are on high ground, they are liable to have eggs frosted in late frosts, or young grouse killed by late snowstorms, as occurred in Season 1864 on Glenshee. Again, you may have a lazy, whiskey drinking keeper, who neglects vermin-killing; but, as a rule, once out of the egg, the young bird is safe.
[ Heather Burning and Draining.]
Indiscriminate burning of heather is another great drawback on Sutherland and Caithness moors.
In Caithness, it will take fourteen or more years to grow deep, good heather on the hill moors, and in Sutherland eight or ten.
The upper moors of Caithness, and also of parts of Sutherland, carry very little really good heather; in fact, only on the burn banks or dry knolls does it grow.
The remainder of the ground is broken, knotty peat bog, with short stunty heather, and stretches of deer grass, with wet flows on the upper flats. All good shooting ground in fine weather, and birds like it then.
Birds rely on the deep heather for shelter and food in the winter. Burn that out, and they go where they can find it, and don't return. It is just the same as if you burn down a crofter's house and his crops, he must move on to somewhere else.
Some of the best moors in Caithness have been ruined, and cannot be recovered for very many years, to the very serious loss of the proprietors, from incessant burning and shooting down breeding stock after disease, both attributable to the almost culpable negligence, certainly ignorance, of those in charge of the regulation of the burning and the letting of the moors.
The burning is a far more serious business than the shooting down of stock.
One fool of a factor did say to me (he is dead and gone, or I would not name it), "Perish every grouse, before a blade of grass shall suffer."
The sheep rent on the moor to which the above referred is gone because sheep do not now pay on that ground, and the grouse rent—the best rent of the two—is also gone, because the heather is burned off clean as the back of your hand.
In Dalnawillan, heather burning has been with me a constant wrangle with the proprietor or his representatives, or the sheep farmers, no matter the clear agreements to the contrary, protecting the heather. If I was fighting anybody's battle, it was in the interest of the proprietor; the question was one far more important to him than to me.
Burning, to do it properly, is a very expensive process on such extensive ranges as the Caithness moors.
In Dalnawillan and Rumsdale, it needed four parties during the early part of April, to do it properly, four men in each party. One man to kindle, and keep on kindling; the other three men armed with birch brooms, watching and regulating the course of the fire, beating it out where it unduly spreads, or beating it out altogether to rekindle in case of a change of wind in a wrong direction.
Unless the weather is quite dry for a week or more, the rough ground and deer grass, both of which it is most desirable to burn in the interest of grouse and sheep, will not burn, and when your staff of men are collected and got together, a sudden storm of rain or snow comes on, and you are delayed for a week, and perhaps put off altogether for that season.
Naturally, if you are prevented by weather from burning, the sheep farmer is annoyed, because he does not get his burning done. He argues, "Let me burn; I will burn as much in a day as you will in a week." And so he would, but it would be the fine old heather that will burn, and the shooting value of the moor destroyed for many long years.
I do not say that sheep farmers or their shepherds desire to burn, and damage the shooting tenant, and also the proprietor (not that the latter or his factor understand the question or appreciate the damage) by burning out patches of good heather, the burning of which destroys the cover appertaining to hundreds of acres, and so destroys the shooting.
One shepherd certainly, said he liked the ground burned, because it was easier walking.
But if the shepherd is to burn, what can he do by himself.
He can do no more than kindle a fire, and let the winds of heaven take it how and where it likes.
To get a good fire, he will get his back to the wind, and kindle a well-heathered burn, and make a good clear sweep for half-a-mile, and so destroy the shelter of five or six hundred or more acres for a dozen years or more.
I have seen two miles in a blaze at one time, but not on my ground; it was too well looked after.
[ Surface Draining.]
I am convinced that much may be done in improving grouse ground in the north of Scotland. Make ground habitable and suitable for grouse, and they will come without any further trouble.
Grouse like wettish ground, especially in hot weather, presuming that there is dry ground available for them to nest upon, and feed and sit upon in wet weather.
Now, by judicious surface draining, much may be done.
When the ground slopes from the low hills, the surface water works over the face of the ground, thoroughly soddening it, and rotting the heather that would otherwise grow.
The drains are simply small sheep drains cut on the surface, slantingly across the slope, wherever there is fall enough just to run the water.
The drain intercepts the water, runs it off, preventing it from running over the ground below the drain, and immediately dries the ground immediately below the drain. Heather grows some yards wide, and there the birds will sit and nest, and you have created increased grouse ground.
The expense, in view of the benefit is very trifling. A pair of drainers during the summer months, say a cost of £50, will get over a very large extent of ground.
The proprietor was constantly endeavouring to sell the property, in which event my lease would drop through, and he was impervious to any arrangements as to draining, otherwise I should have done the whole of the Dalnawillan ground. As it was, I did do some odd bits, at my own cost. One beat, near the lodge, I scored over with a few hundred yards of draining, and converted it from a bad to a good beat.
Such draining, of course, improves the ground for sheep as well as grouse.
I presume the time will come when proprietors will see that profit will accrue from cultivating their moors for the purpose of carrying grouse, by endeavouring in all ways to improve the heather by judicious burning and draining, in sufficient amounts to carry as large a stock as is reasonable for the extent of ground. I see no reason whatever, if you offer as favourable conditions to the birds, why they should not be as plentiful on ground A as on ground B; as a matter of fact they will be.
[ Dogs.]
To some men (certainly it is so to me) one great element of the pleasure of walking shooting versus standing shooting, viz., the driving of grouse, partridge, and pheasant, is the working and use of dogs where they are useful and essential to success, in the particular sport for which they are used.
Do not let it be inferred that I am detracting from driving, or the skill and experience that is necessary to do it well, both in beaters and guns.
Each sport is delightful in its way and in its season.
The Yorkshire grouse cannot be brought to bag without driving, and so with partridges and pheasants in certain counties.
But I do feel more delight in hunting the game than in having the game hunted towards me.
I have always worked a perfect retriever broken by myself and kept to myself, a dog keen to his work, and who keeps by your side, not at heel, as he needs to see what is doing, if he is to help you to his uttermost, who keeps his nose on the alert, and tells you by a look when you are passing a close sitting partridge or rabbit or hare in its form, and who tells you if the partridge covey is still in front or run up the right or left furrows of the swedes, who stops with you until told to go, and then goes quietly back to where he saw the bird drop, and takes up the scent of the dead or running bird; not a dog who, when told to go rushes and tears about hoping to flush the winged bird into sight, or put up and chase some wretched rabbit, which is far more to his taste.
I have never done any good with pedigree dog-blood as shown on the show bench. Of course, on the show bench it is not pretended for one moment that any good is to accrue in a sporting sense; all is sacrificed to shape, size, and coat, which in a sporting dog get it if you can, but probably you have to do without some points if you get brains and keenness.
Napoleon, Wellington, and Gen. Sheridan were all small men, and their physique would not have commanded prizes on the show bench.
Again, for field trials dogs are bred up for that business only, and are rarely used for sporting.
At a field trial you want a bold pretentious dog that will go in and do just one or two things in a certain form, stand hares and rabbits, if he does it in proper form, and as to whether he is an industrious good worker, that is a matter of indifference. A really good dog, if a little shied by the crowd round him, will be quite out of the running in a field trial. I don't say but that some field trial dogs may possess high qualities that are useful as a cross in breeding.
I raise no objection to dog shows, they afford pleasure to numbers of people. What I desire is that the inexperienced sportsman shall not look in that direction for his sporting dogs.
Caithness birds, especially in catchy weather, run very much when pointed and drawn upon. Clearly, like a red-leg partridge, he tries his legs well before he will take to wing. Sometimes they will road over 100 yards or more, and it is an unexplained mystery to me how a brood will cross a burnt and bare patch in front of you as fast as you can comfortably walk, without showing themselves.
Old solitary cocks are terrible fellows for this, and if your dog does not foot them fast they will outwalk you, and ultimately rise wild.
One old brute pointed well fifty yards within the march, took me such a distance across the Dunbeath march that I began to be so thoroughly ashamed of my trespass, that when he did rise and drop to the shot, I felt half inclined to let him lie and come away.
To my mind working a brace of dogs is a mistake.
Rap, we will say, gets birds and Ben backs him; certainly a very pretty picture, if the dogs do it well.
The birds draw on, and Rap draws on, Ben remains behind, stands like a fool—the poetry of the picture is gone, perhaps he draws on in Rap's footsteps.
Besides if you want to work your dogs in pairs you will need double the number in the kennel, ay, and an extra dog breaker as well.
In the course of a six or seven hour day, to work a party, you will need, if you work them singly, three experienced dogs and two younger ones coming on to work.
In Caithness and Sutherland necessarily wide ranging a little over two hours early in the season, is enough for an old dog, and less for a young one coming on, and four days a week is about as much as they will do, and if the gun shoots four days a week, it is as much as he can do to shoot properly. A man who is careful of himself will get more birds in four easy days, than the enthusiast who works long hours and six days.
If you want to get birds, keep yourself and dogs and gillies fresh and in good form, and so that when birds rise they shall also fall.
I have heard of dogs that will work all day long and every day as well, but I have never yet been fortunate enough to come across that very remarkable and desirable strain.
Here let me give a sketch that is no mere flight of fancy.
The 26th of August, my birthday.
It is a sunny day with a gentle balmy wind, and the heather, which is full in bloom, is dusting your boots white with its pollen.
It is a lazy day for birds, and they will not much care to run.
Daisy is ranging pretty wide, and, getting an indication of birds, pulls up and looks over her shoulder towards her master.
"Has she birds, David?" "She is no sure." You walk slowly up to Daisy, she draws on, and her point gradually stiffens; another twenty yards and she stops full point; you both walk on, the old cock bird rises first at twenty-five yards, and he goes down, you load, and the hen and three young birds rise within ten yards.
Take it calmly, don't smash up the old hen by taking her too soon, and, after her, down with one of the young birds; load quietly and quickly. Daisy stops where she is; up gets another bird and that goes down.
Smoker is sent forward, and he gathers and brings in the old hen and two young birds from out of the deep heather.
No doubt the old cock is a runner.
David and Daisy sit down whilst I go forward and put Smoker on to where the old bird dropped.
We sit and watch him; see the old dog threading the scent at a quick pace in and out amongst the peat hags.
Oh dear, the bird has taken down the burn and we may lose him.
But no; an hundred yards below out comes Smoker from the burn triumphant, with the old cock, which he delivers up without a scratch save the broken pinion.
Daisy is now away to find a fresh point. What has Smoker pointing there, with a look that says as plain as dogs can speak, that fool, Daisy, who thinks so much of herself in her hurry to get fresh points, has left a close sitting bird in that tuft of good heather.
Yes, Smoker is right, as he always is in all he does, and another bird is flushed and bagged.
The brood was seven, and now but two away, thanks to the studious care and intelligence of my two four-footed friends.
And what fine birds, with their white speckled breasts! the young ones as large as the old ones.
Daisy on Point.
We pile them in a heap for the gillie to collect as he comes along.
Dear old Daisy, there were better dogs with better noses and grander action, but the loving creature did her very best to bring birds to bag by care and gentleness, and she did it too.
That retriever, Smoker, the second of his name, has now passed away, and his place taken by a worthy third, was a character.
Amongst other things he was born defective in the power of propagation.
I bred him from a bitch that I bought in Norfolk solely to breed him from; the father was a dog belonging to a keeper of Col. Kenyon Slaney.
There were only two dogs in the litter, all the others being bitches.
He was a poor puny thing, and would have been consigned to the bucket with sundry of his sisters, had there been other dogs in the litter.
But as he grew, and he grew fast, he showed signs of great intelligence.
When old enough, he was sent down to Dalnawillan, to David's care, and there again I saw him when nearly full grown, when there fishing in June.
He knew me again. "Is he steady and quiet, David?"—"Oh, yes." So we took a walk.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, as much as to say, "I wonder if he means to be my master: I will have a try;" so he chases a lamb. I came up with him; he drops the lamb, and away again after the same lamb; aye, and once again after that. The lamb takes to the river, and I after him. I get hold of the lamb and take it ashore, and put it by my side. It was not really hurt, but in a sad state of mind.
At last, up comes Smoker, and receives a real roasting, that satisfies him as to who is to be master, and I trust that retributive justice also satisfied the injured feelings of the lamb.
He was, without exception, the rankest and most determined puppy I ever handled. At times I thought I must give him up; but he repaid my trouble.
At home in the autumn, a pair of partridges were down in some deep feg he was put upon. Up jumped a hare, far more interesting to Smoker, and he away after. Whistle, whistle, yes until you be hoarse; he would not come.
Again the question had arisen as to who was to be master, so I sat myself down a good half-hour before the guilty rascal came to heel; but when he did, and he knew perfectly well what was coming, a hazel stick, cut specially for his education, effectually reminded him.
He lay on the ground, and howled and moaned. Whips were of no effect, he laughed to scorn such mild trifles.
Dogs never mind being thrashed, if they deserve it. Don't do it oftener than you can help, and then do it effectually.
Smoker gets up, wags his tail, has a bit of biscuit to cement renewed friendship, limps a good deal, and goes to work, and cleverly gathers first one and then the other bird.
Only for me would he work. Not a dump did he care for keeper or any other body, but just went his own wilful way.
He was gentle as a lamb. Little children and small dogs might do as they liked with him. My daughter's pug regarded him with a mixture of intense jealousy and reverence, but that did not prevent Toby from occasionally attacking him tooth and nail, much to the amusement of Smoker.
He was free of the library, and a constant partaker of five o'clock tea when not out at work.
For many years Smoker, in the season, worked on grouse, with Daisy, a setter bitch, and with other dogs.
There was great jealousy between him and Daisy, but both good natured over it.
Daisy was very fond, if she could manage to elude attention, of quietly retrieving a bird, and it was as good as a play to observe her delight and his indignation at her encroachment upon his part of the work.
I could tell endless tales of his ability and intelligence.
When not at work, he was the laziest of dogs, but any symptoms of shooting about he was all life. His great object was, then, to get hold of my shooting cape. He had some idiotic notion that he had a lien upon me by so doing, and that I was bound to go out to shoot.
On one occasion I was away from home, and a lady in the house induced him to walk with her in the garden.
As she went through the porch, she took my walking stick.
Smoker, presently, in his quiet, gentlemanly way, took hold of the stick, as the lady thought, to carry it. But no, Smoker walks back and deposits it in the porch, as much as to say, "None of that, when my master is away."
In my time, I have had many good pointers and setters.
I have no prejudice as to which, but pointers are more easy to break; but, then, in those northern latitudes they do not stand the cold so well as setters do.
In breeding, you may reckon that out of four puppies, you will not get more than two out of the four that turn out fairly well, and for dogs of exceptional intelligence not one in twenty; ay, in fifty.
Rap, who pointed my first Scotch grouse was, take him all in all, as good a pointer as I ever had.
Grace, a setter bitch that I worked at the same time as Rap, was charming in every way.
She was a puppy of the Rûg breed from North Wales. How I came by her I forget, and from her I bred many good dogs, but never anything of exceptional excellence.
The best setter I ever handled was Ben, an ivory coloured setter, a first cross between a Gordon and a Laverack.
He was perfect in his work, but a bit rank if the whip was spared.
He would go to the dead birds after they were down if he possibly could, that is, if he had the least licence granted to him.
Pointing and retrieving were all one to him.
He would watch a towered or a stung bird, and let him go and he would go straight, judging distance well, a thing very few retrievers can do; and if the bird did not rise again, he would to a certainty bring him.
The only retriever that I have seen judge distance with a towered bird was a large black dog belonging to the late Sir Stephen Glyn. He marked the bird; the ground being difficult he went, not straight, but across other fields to the right of his bird.
I never did any good with red Irish setters, but it does not follow that, others may not have done so, but I very much doubt it.
I was persuaded to buy a beautiful young pedigree bitch puppy, warranted from dogs that on both sides were worked on grouse. She was perfect in shape and colour, but the veriest fool that ever ranged a moor.
After a season's experience not work, for she never did any work except range beautifully, David said that I had better shoot her.
No, I said; I will advertise her in The Field, and I did as follows:—
"A very handsome —— pedigree red Irish setter bitch, useless on the field, no nose; probably make a winner on the show bench."
I had several applications, and got a few pounds for her, which I handed to David.
[ Disease.]
Touching on the very vexed question of the cause of disease, I will say very little; as to its effects I have said a great deal.
If the poultry fancier keeps a lot of old birds about him, or too thick upon the ground, disease breaks out amongst them.
I take it that on all moors at the end of six and seven years after the last attack, there will be a lot of old birds, and, as with the poultry, disease breaks out and is contagious, and Nature asserts her rights for the survival of the fittest.
The districts west of Dunkeld are probably the healthiest in all Scotland, and so there birds resist disease, but disease has even there made a clearance, and will again.
Yorkshire grouse are now all driven; the old birds come first and are killed off, and we all know that since driving came into vogue, Yorkshire birds are far more healthy.
Were it permissible to hunt the ground in the northern Scotch counties at end of July, and kill off the old birds of the brood, which could be readily done, it would probably stamp out, or at any rate, postpone, the attacks of disease.
[ Wildfowl.]
One other matter is worthy of note in Caithness, and that is the steady yearly decrease of wildfowl.
The upper Caithness moors are breeding ground for wildfowl, geese, ducks, widgeon, teal, plover, and snipe, all, or nearly all, make their way down to the lower ground, so soon as they can flap or fly.
They are not killed in the country to any extent, and if reduced by shooting, it must be by the punt guns in the south, wielded by Sir Ralph Payne Galwey and his colleagues.
As to golden plover, where seventeen years back there were a dozen pairs in the spring time, there will not be more than one or two.
A number of arctic birds nest on the flows, gulls of various kinds—the skua gull, redshanks, and greenshanks (a rare bird), black ducks, divers, and many others.
In the late October, there are considerable flocks of snow buntings.
[ Conclusion.]
My tale is now told. Despite the many bad seasons, the many disappointments, the rod and the gun have kept me going, more or less, year by year, and will, I trust, again, upon the home manor, the trout loch, and the salmon pool, and I have nothing to regret in my Glenmarkie and Dalnawillan leases.
They have afforded me, occasionally, splendid sport, and endless pleasure to my family and to myself.
The fine air of Caithness, direct from the Arctic Pole, the good water, and the healthy exercise, have contributed to their good health and mine, and to their well being, far more than trips to the English coast, or the Continent, whilst the lads have been made good sportsmen with rod and gun, and their holiday pursuits have given them genuine, honest tastes, as well as healthy recreation.
[ Summary.]
Twenty-four years of Glenmarkie and Dalnawillan leases have resulted in nine splendid seasons; five middling ditto; one very middling; and nine with practically no shooting.
On Dalnawillan and Rumsdale moors, the number of grouse killed by sportsmen were as follows:—
| Dalnawillan. Brace. | Rumsdale. Brace. | Total. Brace. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1872 | 1098 | —— | 1098 |
| 1873 | 151 | —— | 151 |
| 1874 | —— | —— | —— |
| 1875 | 38½ | —— | 38½ |
| 1876 | 112 | 100 | 212 |
| 1877 | 426½ | 300 | 726½ |
| 1878 | 627½ | 480 | 1107½ |
| 1879 | 1338 | 900 | 2238 |
| 1880 | 1473 | 1600 | 3073 |
| 1881 | 822 | 900 | 1722 |
| 1882 | 186 | 370 | 556 |
| 1883 | 53 | —— | 53 |
| 1884 | 300 | 170½ | 470½ |
| 1885 | 635½ | 439 | 1074½ |
| 1886 | 1211½ | 673 | 1884½ |
| 1887 | 1223 | 561 | 1784 |
| 1888 | 816½ | 500½ | 1317 |
| ——— | ——— | ——— | |
| 10,512 | 6,994 | 17,506 | |
| Yearly average | 618½ | 411½ | 1,030 |
In addition, in the seasons of 1879, '80, '81, '86 and '87, a considerable number of grouse were killed in the winter months by the keeper.
