the unavoidable absence of salmon. That is all fudge. Deer-stalking is an excellent thing in its way, and may indeed be considered as the highest branch of the art venatorial as practised in these islands; but there is not one sportsman out of five hundred who ever had the opportunity of levelling his rifle at a stag, and not one out of a thousand who can pursue the sport systematically. Besides this, the habitual deer-stalker must be a person endowed with uncommon stamina. Quickness of vision—accuracy of aim—caution and perseverance—are admirable things; but the stalker of the deer in his native solitudes must moreover possess the inestimable gifts of muscle and wind in larger proportion than is usually allowed to the inhabitants of cities. He must account it nothing to lie half immersed for hours in a bog or burn, without even the trifling excitement of an occasional glimpse of an antler; he must be prepared to crawl up or rush down precipices, as the exigency of the case or the movements of the deer may require; and he must, moreover, make up his mind to return homewards many an evening, after having been on the hills before cock-crow, wet, weary, and famishing, without a single incident to console him for all his great exertion. Now, there are very few people who will willingly submit to this; and we cannot wonder at it, if other sport can be obtained with a less expenditure of labour. We never knew a deer-stalker yet who had lost his rest for grouse-shooting; and we have known several who, from choice, would rather stalk a curlew than a stag. Your “whaup,” indeed, is a most difficult fellow to circumvent. Seated on the sea-beach, he might defy the approach of Sir Tristrem; indeed, to have shot a whaup in the month of October is an exploit of which any man has just reason to be proud. The true sportsman piques himself on the universality of his skill, not in exclusive addiction to one particular pursuit. Therefore, as a general rule, you may set down every writer on sporting subjects who affects to be more magnificent in his views than his neighbours, either as an impostor, who in reality knows little, or as a monomaniac, whose general experiences of the chase are worthless, and who cannot serve as an adequate guide.