The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-31 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 31, 1858.

course of natural phenomena, his remarks on the
fortifications of Allahabad, and on the question
of " final causes" in the creation of certain
animals (ii. p. 46) ; and he was not deficient in
practical shrewdness, as will be evident from his
bargain (ii. p. 55) with the Nawab Vizier at
Lucknow respecting the district of Khyraghur.
lle seems to have almost intuitively understood
the native character, and his own highbred
courtesy was exactly what would come home to
the feelings of an Asiatic. Thus on his first day
in the country,—

Trays of fruit from the Nawah, with a letter of congrc•
tulation on our arrival, were ushered in in great form. I
wrote a civil note of acknowledgment, which I afterwards
understood was regarded as s particular politeness. It
seemed to we that the returning a verbal compliment, or
the making a secretary write on (the occasion, would be a
great deficiency iu breeding.

And he was equally careful ;to impress the
mind by the splendour of his retinue, and was
rewarded by their reverential behaviour to him,
which was remarked as singular, but not attri-
buted to its right cause by the English gentlemen
who witnessed it. His principle is thus stated,
but it is even now not sufficiently understood

:-

I gratified the attendants [at the Taj at Agra] very much
by ordering a new silver tissue canopy, with proper sten-
dard-uoles ,to be rained over the monuments. That which
now exists is completely ragg"d, anti supported by shabby
sticks covered with coarse red paint. The reverence shown
by the troopers to the remains of the sovereigns is suffi-
cient to show how a lit tle attention of this sort will be ap-
preciated. Again and again I say that men are to be grab•
fled not by what we think important, but by whet conies
home to their habitual feelings and prejudices, howsoever
trifling it may appear• to us. This is a policy sadly ne-
glected by the British in this country, and the consequence
is visible in the very little approach to assimilation towards
which our long dominion over the country has led the
natives.

With similar good feeling: he determines to
restore the tomb of Akbar, and there was doubt-
less a mixture of the same feeling in his plan of
restoring the canal of Murdun Ali Khan. The
value of his tact and appreciation of these matters
was strongly evinced at Patna, where he received
his visitors with his usual urbanity, which seemed
to have gone very deeply into their sensibili-
ties :

I gratified, in a pecnliar degree, Gundshaum Sing,h by
granting permission for his wearing at the ilurbar ( which
without such leave would have heeti inadmissible) a sabre,
bestowed upon him by Lord Wellesley fur the activity of
his service with Lord Lake. . . . . . As soon as he
got out of the room he cried in recounting to those around
him the kindness with which I had spoken to him. Our
people are much toa negligent of those little winning at-
tentions w ieh operate strongly on the feelings of the
natives. We think that the simplicity of our address and
habits must be comprehended by them. But in fact they
are too prone to ascribe those manners in us to our hold-
ing the natives too cheap t' care what they may think with
regard to us.

After a durbar which T held at Calcutta, a rajah said to
the public secretary, " This man knows what to say to us.
You ought always to have a great airdar at the head of the
Government. - was of the weaver cast, and he
could not flatter us with aiiything he said !"

his observations on the native character in
Bengal which occur at vol. i. p. 65, and on the
sepoys at p. 36, are excellent, but too long for
extract. He attributed the tenure of our power to
the recognized equity of our rule and the impar-
tiality of our procedure, though, like Colonel
Sleeman, he records the abhorrence which is felt
of the lengthiness of our law suits, and the in-
vincible repugnance which a native feels to
appearing as a witness in any of our courts.
Kindness, sympathy, and good feeling are observ-
able in all his dealings and suggestions on these
and kindred subjects, and the impression which
was thus created in those over whom he ruled
was not likely to be lessened by the spectacle of
his activity and energy in the military depart-
ment of his administration. He discerned with
much sagacity wherein our lee strength and
weakness lay, and if he cannot he cited as a
prophet on these matters in express words, like
Metcalfe or Napier, it was probably because he
was engaged in actual hostilities with tribes still
fierce and unsubdued, and our power had not
then arrived at the stationary state in which the
best means of preserving its stability come in
question. It was making, not made, and both as
a man and as a statesman he is undoubtedly to
be reckoned as one of its most judicious archi-
tects.

727

Salmon-Caste and Stray Shots. By J. Col-
quhoun. London : Blackwood and Sons.
SPORTSMEN, like Reviews, may be divided into
monthlies and quarterlies. There is, first of all,
your regular, thoroughgoing, weather-beaten
destroyer of the ferce naturae, who works like a
gamekeeper, and enjoys it like a poacher ; who
only knows the change of seasons by the change
of costume which they demand from him ; who
passes from tops and spurs into wading-boots and
wide-awakes—from these into pads and flannels
—from these into pilot-jacket and straw hat—
from these into lace-up boots and light porous
shooting coat—from this to the heavy velveteen and
leggings, and so round again to pink and leathers,
with a happy unconsciousness that man was
born for any other purpose than hunting, fishing,
cricketing, yatching, grouse, partridge, pheasant,
and duck shooting. To such a man almost
every month in the year has its distinct open-air
amusement—as the salmon succeeds to the fox,
and the trout to the salmon—the bat to the
fishing-rod, and the rudder to the bat—the
moor to the Channel, and the stubble to
the moor—the pheasant to the partridge,
and the snipe and woodcock to the pheasant,
till Christmas finally comes round, amid heaps of
furred and feathered slain, and crowned by a
thousand anecdotes of the year's skill and daring.
The second class of sportsmen are those who,
whether from taste or necessity, merely just
" run down" into sporting localities at particular
seascns. A month with the hounds at Christ-
mas, a week's fishing at :Easter, a blow with a
friend round the Isle of Wight in July or
August, and perhaps the occupancy of 700 or
800 acres of shooting till term begins again in
November, are about the limits of their indul-
gence. There is, of course, the third class, who
care for only one kind of sport ; and a fourth
class, who can get only one holiday. And it is in
the last-mentioned that the appearance of
such books as Mr. Colquhoun's, about this season
of the year, awakens sweet and vague longings,
like a youth's first consciousness of passion.
About this time, too, the printsellers begin to
put all their sporting pictures in the windows ;
so that the unlucky sportsman, compelled by
professional labours to abide the hot breath of
August on th London flags, gnashes his teeth as
he plods along Pall-mall, or Piccadilly, to catch
glimpses of " Sportsmen at Luncheon," or "The
Stray Shot," or "So-ho," or any other familiar
vision set there by the demon of discontent to
tantalize him.
Mr. Colquhoun's present work is principally
confined to the Island of Mull. This region
seems to afford fair sport of all kinds, and very
good at woodcocks and wild fowl. In 1857, says
the author :
On our first grouse-day my son and I shot twelve brace,
and not one point at black game till we had left the moor ;
the dogs then found a small pack, and we killed three.
On our first day after black game, me bagged ten brace
and a half, and never even saw a grouse. The bag counted
eight brace and a half the first partridge•day. We could
have increased it greatly, but decliued some large easily
protected coveys. There were no chances that day at
other winged game, except a sprinkling of pheasants, also
reprieved. The grouse and black game had ten days' law,
and the partridges upwards of a month. Fine strong.
flying game rewarded our forbearance.
The following remarks on the alleged decrease
in grouse are very well worth perusal :
In former years, when there were more black cattle and
fewer sheep, no doubt grouse were far less disturbed and
injured by stock; but so long as these nurseries for grouse,
the deer-forests, continue in such vogue, the superseding
of black cattle by sheep is in part atoned for. Had the
grouse-grumblers complained that Highland farmers now
keep more sheep and fewer black cattle than they formerly
did, there would have been truth in the grievance.
If it is maintained that the increasing flocks of sheep,
like locusts, consume the food formerly allowed to the
grouse, and thereby starve them out, I must own I can
hardly reconcile this view of the matter with the facts I
am about to state. let. No one will deny that the heather
upon the west Highland coast of Scotland is quite as good
and luxuriant as that of the north or centre. `god. The
average sheep stock of the three districts is pretty much
upon a par ; that is to say, the complement of sheep upon
every hill is whet that bill will support without detriment
to the stock. Now, every grouse sportsman knows that
the grouse in the north or centre Highlands of Scotland
are immensely more numerous than in the watery west..
To put it in another form—a crack shot in the north, or
in Perthshire, will sometimes hog from one hundred and
fifty to two hundred brace. On our best protected and
best managed MOOTS in the west Highlands an equally
good shot will seldom score as high as fifty brace under
every advantage. Now, may I ask what is the reason that

the birds ere so asseh more numerous in one pert of the
kingdom than in the other ? It is not the want of food in
the west Highlands; there is abundance of heath to raise
and support three times the head of game, if the climate
would only allow it. Protect as strictly as possible, and
kill every rapacious bird and beast on the ground, there
never could be half as many grouse reared in the west as
in the north or centre Highlands ; and the reason is, the
humid climate prevents it. . . „

When rented Sonachan moors (about 8,000 acres of
as beautiful heather as ever man stepped upon), I engaged
a game protector, who for many years had served two as
experienced and persevering grouse shooters as any in the
north. This man came to me shortly before the 12th of
August. He was amazingly charmed with the look of his
new hills, and could not be persuaded that there were com-
paratively few birds on them. After the first day's shoot-
ing his disgust was extreme. Standing on a commanding
" knowe" at the close of our weary day, add sweeping his
brawny arm in the direction of our well-travelled beat—
" Weel, sir, if ye had sic fine feeding and breeding ground
in the north, ony gentleman that could shoot and
walk as ye've done the day wad kill his hundred and fifty
brace, and no mistake."
Hid the decrease of grouse commenced in the north and
centre Highlands, and gradually found its way to the west,
there might have been some show of reason for this theory—
namely, that the sheep have eaten out the grouse. Unfor-
tunately for the theorists, the grouse scarcity was simul-
taneous all over the kingdom.
Perhaps I may be fired at with my own weapons—viz.,
that as there Is less heather-burning in the west, from the
wet springs, than in the other districts and, conse-
quently, less young tender heath for food, there must be
less sustenance for either sheep or grouse I rather
think, however, that I am safe 'from any twitting on that
subject !

Excessive heather-b ;rning is another cause, as I think,
fallaciously given, for the falling-off of grouse. Lessees of
shootings are loud in their complaints of this necessary
evil,—and with reason. Many of them paying high rents,
and for short leases, their sport, during the whole term of
their occupancy, may be quite ruined by reckless burning.
Having rented shootings for twenty-three years in all parts
of Scotland, and been a frequent sufferer, I have no bias
in favour of the heather-burners. Any good sportsman,
however, ought to be aware that, if a moor was left to its
natural unburnt luxuriance, the birds would he very apt to
leave it for ground that had been burned. I once took a
very good moor in Perthshire for five years. On my first
arrival, one of the sheep-fanners had just consumed a
long stretch of fine blooming heather. I forgave him on
promise of never burning again, except under my keeper's
directions. For three season.* there were few birds on
that part of my best, hut afterwards they gradually re•
turned, and on the last " twelfth " of my lease I killed
considerably more than the half of my day's bag on and
about that very burnt spot. Grouse will never eat old
heather if they can get young, rank heather being used by
them chiefly for shelter. If heather-burning is advanta
geoua to sheep, it is equally so to grouse. Heather should
always be burned in small patches, under the eye of a
person thoroughly acquainted with the habits of grouse.
A moor treated in this judicious way will loose far fewer
birds after a dry spring-burning; and when the heath
sprouts again, they will be much more regularly distil.
buted over the hills.

As to the grouse disease, when they are got tip to the
extent they were a few years since, an epidemic will be
likely enough to thin them down, and may linger for years
after. This, in a small way, often happens to hares, when
they increase beyond a certain limit.
The fishing about this part of the world seems
better than the shooting, but the author's ac-
counts of it are rather vague and indefinite. In
fact, the tastes of the naturalist are continually
interfering with those of the sportsman ; and
though this element perhaps improves the
flavour of the work on the whole, yet in particu-
lar passages it sometimes produces disappoint-
ment.

The essay at the end of this little work, on the
natural history of the British islands, is per-
haps as entertaining as any part ; while the
anecdotes of how he and his son stocked their
museum cannot fail to awaken in many a reader's
mind the most delightful recollections of his
youth and boyhood. Here is an instance of
enthusiasm in the pursuit of " peckers "

I now come to a class of birds familiar visitants of every
lawn anti garden, and yet, from their unobtrusive habits,
as difficult to observe ar either the remote wader or the
wild bird of prey. On a mummer's day we see on all
sides numbers of little birds, somo on the ground, some
perched on twigs, and come in the air, each amply sup-
plied with its own proper food. whether that consists of
winged insects, grass seeds, or berries. in the bolls and
stems of the trees, however, are lodged the chrysalises and
lavas of many large and small insects, which nut only in-
jure the trees, but would he very ruxious and troublesome
if allowed to take wing. These it is the work of the wood-
pecker to seek nit and devour. The peckers are divided
into several kind+, all performing their allotted tasks.
The greater spatted and green woodpecker are chiefly for
the bolls and stems of trees. The form of their feet being
like the parrot, anti thrown very far back, only fits them
for going up the tree, mid over the tope of the
branches. Their plan is to begin at the foot, and work
their way, spirally, to the top, searching every crevice.
If the green woodpecker detect an unsound part, betray-
ing the grubs beneath, it immediately begins hammering
until there is a opening wide enough for its long tongue,