adventures, never felt more confident in his prowess than the deer-stalker with his rifle on his arm as he climbs the breezy heights of Ben-y-gloe, and prepares for a day of exertion, sustained by the intense interest of the noble sport. And who shall say such pursuits are without their effect on the mind? If, as we love to think, the gentleman of England stands well nigh first in the scale, he owes much of his superiority to that education of the body which men of rank in other countries rarely enjoy. He becomes hardy in person, and his mind acquires manliness with it. He trusts to his own eye and his good hand, and his spirit acquires the same independence. He communes with nature, and learns to live alone, and he is not the worse member of society for being able to do so. Holding this opinion of the importance of the prevailing taste, let it not be thought unworthy of our gravity to devote a few pages to illustrate it. Many of the southern counties of Scotland have a great extent of moor and hill, well peopled with game. In Dumfriesshire and Galloway, Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, as well as in the ancient Royal forest-The Forest' par excellence of Scotland, now Selkirkshire -once full of red-deer, as now teeming with white-faced sheepand on the high grounds of the other border counties, the red grouse is tolerably abundant, and the black-game in much greater number than in the wilder ranges of the northern Highlands; so that a good gun in the beginning of the season may bring to the bag twenty or thirty brace of black-game in a fair day, including hens, which are not there held sacred. But over that southern division of Scotland the game gets early wild and unapproachable; there is no deer nor ptarmigan; and there is not on the whole such certainty of continued sport as to induce many devotees to hire the right of shooting there. Passing over for the present the fine salmon-fishing of Tweed, we may say that the real sportingground of Scotland lies beyond the two Friths and the wall of Antoninus; and, with the exception of the agricultural shire of Fife, there are none of the counties beyond that line in which the game and right of shooting are not now objects of considerable pecuniary value. We have had access to some details that have been lately collected regarding the tracts let as shootings in several of those counties, from which we propose to condense for the benefit of our readers a little of the statistics of Scotch sport. Without pretending to minute accuracy, we believe our information may be generally relied on; and we trust it may not be imputed to undue egotism if we dwell at times upon matters not purely statis tical, in passing through scenes always dear to us, and to which distance now lends all its enchantment. Of Stirlingshire and Dumbarton we have the scantiest information. In the former county, grouse-shooting extending over 5000 acres is let for 407., and another range containing 3400 acres for 301. a year; while a fine range, including the whole of Ben Loinond, the territory of the Duke of Montrose, is for the most part in his Grace's own occupation. As for Dumbarton, we believe the lord of the Lennox does not let his shootings; at least we have learnt nothing of rented shootings in that county. The shooting of Arran, which abounds in grouse and black-game, is entirely in the hands of the Duke of Hamilton, who rents the game of the small fragment of that picturesque island that does not belong to himself. In Argyllshire also, the great shootings are mostly in the bands of the proprietors, but we have found a few shootings that are in use to be let in this county at the following rents : Bovery, 4000 acres Lochawe-side, 4000 acres Tyndrum, 2 to 3 miles square Rent £120 150 50 50 In all these, the rents obtained from the shooting are over and above the agricultural and pastoral rent. No difference is made in the mode of culture or pasture on account of game or sport. But in the northern district of the mainland of this great county, which is more than 100 miles in length, a range of 35,000 acres is devoted to deer-forest by the Marquis of Breadalbane, and nearly as much by Mr. Campbell of Monzie, who give up all pasture rent, and in a great degree the common sport of grouseshooting, for the sake of the deer, an animal that will not live with sheep and shepherds' dogs, and which must not be disturbed by the frequent crossing of the grouse-shooter. Perthshire, the greatest of the Highland counties, is also the greatest in amount of rent derived from shootings, notwithstanding the vast territories reserved for the great lords of the soil. In the southern part of the county, Lord Willoughby has a small deer-forest, where Prince Albert found more stags than there were in the days of Fitz-James; and in the north a large tract is devoted to the same purpose by Lord Breadalbane, besides leaving abundance of grouse-ground. The Marquis's territory under deer and (mixed) grouse and sheep in this county is reckoned to extend to 153.000 acres, and to be worth 40851. of yearly game rent. After these and numerous other deductions of moors and forests not let, the extent of acres let for grouse shooting shooting has been computed at 534,400, and the annual rent produced at 10,9577.* In Perthshire, therefore, the rate seems to be, on an average, 50 acres for one pound of rent. But it must be kept in view that the game-rent is in addition to the pasture-rent, and moreover, in almost all cases the tenants of the soil benefit greatly by the expenditure of the sportsmen tenants of their glens. Additional accommodation is required beyond the shooting bothy;' extra servants, gillies,' baggage-horses, shooting ponies, to be furnished and fed. The good wife cannot supply enough from her dairy and poultry-yard. The very meal and straw for the dogs, and horse corn, are all derived from the same quarter-and all to be paid for. It is remarked that small Highland farmers pay a good portion of their Martinmas rents in English sovereigns, instead of the dear, dirty notes of their own banks. In Angus, the great lords of the Grampian glens, the Ogilvies and Lord Panmure, do not let their shootings, but are contented with such sport for themselves and their friends as can be coinbined with sheep-pasturing. Aberdeenshire contains not only the highest mountain in Bri * The details may be interesting to some of our readers :— tain, but, if we take in a small border of Perthshire, by far the most considerable Alpine range. From Dee to Spey, from Blair to Ballater, a good day's journey in any direction, may be said to form a continued hunting-ground of the highest quality for sport. The Spey and Dee, even so high up in their course, give fair salmon-fishing. The streams which feed them, and the mountain lochs, are full of trout, which afford good sport to the angler, and are delicate on the table, though unsightly to look at. In a June evening at the east end of Loch Tilt, we have taken trout as fast as we could throw for an hour together (stans lapide in uno) sometimes two at a time, small mossy trout with unshapely heads. Loch-nan-Ean- - a high mountain tarn in the wilds of Invercauld-has a better kind of trout, which the natives choose to call char. It is readily taken with fly, and is found of good size. We have eaten them at the inn of Spittal of Glenshee of a pound weight and red in the flesh, and (after a walk from Braemar) they required no sauce to make us pronounce them delicious. On the other declivity of this range, the Don rises, which for forty miles of its course gives the finest trout-fishing we know in Scotland. It is less rocky and impetuous than the Dee. Its banks are richer, and its alternate pool and gravelly stream are to the very heart's content of an angler. Time was when we have fished the Don from the Cock Brig of Alergue,' where the old military road crosses, all the way down under the ruined towers of Kildrummy, to where the ancient Culdees placed their monastery on the banks of that sweet stream among the rich meadows of Monymusk. Our way was more in the river bed than on any road, and it was superb sport. The fishing-basket each day was several times emptied of the smaller trout, and was frequently brought home filled at night with not one of less than a pound weight, some running to three pounds. The outskirts of all that wild range we have described are perhaps on the whole the best grouse-shooting in Scotland. Lord Elcho lately shot more grouse there in one day than was ever done by one gun before; though we have heard that Mr. Campbell of Monzie has since, in a comparatively narrow beat, far exceeded that number- a feat which we should like to have recorded more accurately. As you penetrate deeper into the fastnesses you get among the great deer-glens of Mar and Athol; and, threading the streams to their heads, you find yourself rapidly leaving first grass, then heather, and lastly the lichen vegetation, where the tops of Ben Macdhui and Cairn Gorm present nothing to the foot or the eye but the débris of red granite. That is the haunt of ptarmigan. The Highlander tells you they live on stones; and it is true their crops are found to contain a quantity of of pebbles, necessary for triturating the tough moss and Alpine plants that form their food. It is long ago, but not the less fresh in our memory, when we first penetrated these mountains from the north, that is, the Spey side. It was a September morning that we rode our pony (hight Glenelg from the country of his breeding) to the highest farmhouse in Abernethy, where we left him to wait our return. Two active lads, sons of the tenant, were delighted to accompany us, and we were on our march when the day was still early. In those days, the lower part of the glen of Nethy was too rank heather for grouse; and for miles we passed over, scarcely letting our dogs hunt it. Towards evening we fell among several good coveys, and had abundance of sport, and more than the gillies liked to carry, before we struck the waters that run to the Awn. But our object was other game, and we were glad to find ourselves getting among the ptarmigan as night fell. A council was held to deliberate where we should sleep. We ourselves inclined for the Clach-ean, the shelter-stone on the rocky bank of Loch Awn. But it was easy to see our proposal was most distasteful to the natives. It is well enough known that the shelterstone is under the peculiar charge of the fairy people of Glen Awn, who are pretty hospitable when a shepherd or deer-stalker is driven there by stress of weather, but will not tolerate any, wanton attempt to encroach upon their protection. We have since that time passed a night there. But then, the cautious councils prevailed, and our party turned a little eastward, and made, as it got quite dark, a shealing which the shepherds of Glen Awn use for a few months in summer, situated almost at the highest forking' of Awn, and, so far as we know, the highest inhabited house that night in Britain. It was a hut of green sod, with a roof of thin black turf. The walls were not above three feet high, and one required to enter as you do into the galleries of the pyramids. Having crept in, we were heartily welcomed by the shepherds, and after eating our supper together (to which they contributed a piece of 'mutton' marvellously like venison), and when we had reconciled their thin active dogs to our tired pointers having a share of the heather in the corner, we lay down in our plaids round the fire of bog-fir and heather-roots, which smouldered in the midst of the hovel. The weather had changed in the course of the night, and one of our party awoke with a feeling of intense cold. He trimmed the fire, and threw upon it a bundle of wet heather, which produced at first only smoke. He had thrust his feet towards the fire, and was again asleep, when we were aroused by a shout of fire,' and found, on springing up, the roof of the bothy in a light blaze, caught from the |