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PREFACE
EXCEPTING the Northern tour,
the following articles were contributed to an Edinburgh weekly journal
anxious to establish a sporting sheet.
The introduction will explain its object. The whole comprises a few of the
last experiences of the Author's shooting and fishing life. In these later
days he has consequently had the pleasure and comfort of always being
accompanied by one or other, sometimes by both his two elder sons, who,
having beea thoroughly trained by himself, never annoyed him by mistakes or
blunders, which so often ruffle the old hand when in company with a young
brother of the rod or gun.
One of these dear companions is now shooting bears, antelopes, wild
peacocks, &c., in India, with his regiment, "the old Black Watch;" while his
elder brother has also found a congenial field in "the sister island," where
for the last five years he has been serving with the Royal Irish Dragoon
Guards.
A first Indian addition to the home museum was an eagle flying over the
tents when the young hunter opportunely had his fowling-piece in hand. He
shortly after added another trophy in the portly person of a brown bear,
killed by a little double Whitworth given him on departure.
On the first shooting-party Bruin was stealing along a ledge of rocks, at
the base of which the rifle was posted. The bear rolled down the precipice
and pitched at the shooter's feet. Fortunately the shot was deadly, or the
rough one might have acknowledged the salute by a too cordial embrace. These
and numerous other foreign spoils are preserved to adorn the joint
collection.
The Author has only further to say that all his sporting feats are
transcripts from his private journal, taken down the same night, or at
furthest next morning after they occurred. He has never, therefore, been
forced to draw on memory or imagination!
KAMES CASTLE, July 1866.
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