Our nine little victims lie upon the heather before us, and Jemmie weighs each in his hand and tries, very unnecessarily, their beaks in order to be assured of their youth, and admires their growth, and beams upon men and dogs in high good humour. I, too, criticise the birds and am conscious of a stifling feeling of regret. Here are nine beautiful little lives taken in as many minutes, taken so easily--alas! but who could ever give back to these feathered ruins the thing we have bereft them of? I know it is foolish to sentimentalise thus over the dead creatures I came to destroy, and will destroy again the very next time that I have an opportunity; but the triumph of the sportsman is always a little marred, I think, by this feeling of guilt--the guilt of having robbed mother Nature of some of her beautiful children. She does very well without them, I dare say, and if we had not secured them doubtless the kites and hawks and foxes would have taken their share--probably as large a share as this of ours; nevertheless, here they were an hour ago upon this moor, alive and busy and beautiful; and now they are not, and _we_ did it. Nevertheless, again, we are up and about and ready to "do it" once more after a quarter of an hour's repose; and the next thing we chance upon is a covey of chirping and twittering little willow-grouse, scarcely free of the egg-shells, a tiny, confiding flock that flit chattering and scolding after their brown and white mother, annoyed to be disturbed and made to use their lovely little mottled wings in flight, and anxious to settle again before twenty yards have been covered. We send a laugh after the little family, instead of a hailstorm of No. 7, and leave them to grow and fatten; they shall enjoy the delights of life on this moor for three good weeks, if not four, ere the leaden death shall make Erinofka the poorer by their perfectly marked little persons. Then an old blackcock, unaware that Jemmie and his choked left barrel are about, foolishly lets us approach within fifty yards of his sanctuary, and rising with a crow of defiance, subsides instantly at the bidding of the unerring James, with a groan and a gasp--dead. Presently a superb covey of willow-grouse (who are the parents of our own red variety of the family) rise with a whirr and a loud laugh from the old cock, leave their tribute of four upon the heather--and vanish. We see them flit like a white cloud over the open moorland, rise like one being to top the bushes, flash their wings in the sun as they wheel round in the traditional manner of their tribe before settling, and then we suddenly lose sight of them and see them no more. "They are down among the aspens," said Jemmie. Hermann dissented. "They wheeled right round the spinney," he says, "and settled well beyond it."