by appointment. There, ten or a dozen sportsmen seated on the ground, all warm in body and mind--their dogs watching eagerly for their share of the feast, which is thrown them with liberal hand--their guns reared against some rock--their game thrown picturesquely on the moorland turf--Flibbertigibbets, with their asses who have brought up the baskets of provisions, the keg of beer, and bottles of porter, are running about and acting the waiters in a style of genuine originality; while keepers and markers are at once lunching and keeping an eye on the dogs, lest they are too troublesome to their masters; who are all talking together with inconceivable ardour of their individual achievements. The situation, the mixture of men and animals, of personages and costumes, all go to make up a striking picture. On the English moorlands, however, grouse-shooting is but as it were a brilliant and passing flash. As the enjoyment of the sport is generally a matter of grace and friendship, and is sought by numbers who can only devote to the excursion, at the best, a few days, it is a scene of animation and havoc for a week or ten days, and then its glory is over. During this time, however, the keepers on many estates make a rich harvest, by presents from gentlemen for attendance and guidance to the best haunts of the game--by the loan of dogs at good interest to such as have not come well provided, or have met with accidents, or whose dogs, as is sometimes the case, unused to this kind of sport and scenery, have bolted and disappeared at the first general discharge of guns; and by furnishing, _sub rosâ_, grouse at a guinea a brace to certain luckless braggadocios, who have boastingly promised to various friends at home plenty of game from the moors; and have not been able to ruffle a single feather! In the Highlands the scene is different. The grounds are more generally rented by individuals or parties; they are wider and wilder, and both from their extent and distance from the populous districts of England are more thinly scattered with shooters. There, some of the sportsmen take their families to their cottages on their shooting-ground, and on which they have probably bestowed some trouble and expense, to render them sufficiently comfortable and convenient for a few months’ occasional summer sojourn, and what in nature can afford a more delicious change from the ordinary course and place of life? Up far amongst the wild mountains and moorlands, amid every fresh and magnificent object--amid fairyland glens of birch and hills of pine, the sight of crystal, rapid, sunny streams, and the sound of waterfalls, in the lands of strange and startling traditions. To intelligent children full of the enjoyment of life and healthful curiosity, in such scenery every thing is wonderful and delightful; to ladies of taste, such a life for a brief season must be equally pleasant. There are some ladies, indeed, of the highest rank,