Part 27

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.