The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-07-24 00:00:00

PROSPECTS OF THE GROUSE SEASON.

We believe it has generally been experienced that a
good season for the farmer is a good one for the sports-
Man ; and, judging from what has already passed as re-
gards both, the prospect of an abundance of game keeps
pace with the appearance of an ample reward to the
cultivator of the soil. The cold spring retarded the
hatching period a week or two, but the weather through-
out May and June, although ungenial in the former
month, was on the whole favourable to incubation ; and,
as the great hatch of the grouse leave the shell in the
early part.of the latter month, the showers which have
fallen so plentifully since have kept the young brood in
abundance of that particular kind of food on which, for
the first, few weeks of their existence, they chiefly subsist.
The birds were therefore in so good condition by the
time cf the severe and unexpected storm of the latter end
of. June, that fewer casualties than could have otherwise
been anticipated have occurred; and on some of the
best moors in Athole which Obve been gone over, the
parent birds have been seen follo*ed by covies of more
than the average number. Proprietors have of late years
been looking more strictly after their tenants as to hea-
ther burning; this practice, in some instances, has been
carried too far, and where a proper extent of ground
has not been oleared to make way for a new growth
of heather, emP etruni, 'and other plants on which the
grouse feed, the result has been unfavourable to the
prospects cf the sportsman. When the heather bush is
hived to grow too long, its branches no longer form that
covering to the nest of the grouse which is necessary,
neither are.the young shoots of an old heath at all so re-
lishing as those from a young plant, and accordingly in-
stinct leads the birds to reject such cover for ground
better suited for bringing a numerous, and in their early
days, a somewhat delicate progeny to maturity. Expe-
rience has thus proved that a regular rotation of muir
burning is the twist advantageous course both for tenant
and proprietor; for the former is neatly as much interest-
ed as the latter in encouraging a breed from which so
great a proportion of the rent of a highland hill is de-
rived. On the whole, we are happy to say that the pros-
pects of the sportsman for the ensuing season are very
flattering; and if there will be found, by the 12th of next
month, fewer cheepers than are sometimes found to swell
the amount of "braces" with which the great guns cele-
brate that anniversary, they will have to solace them-
selves with the reflection that they will, on the other
hand, have more weight as well as more sport for their
money.

Some of the Perthshire moors have been already let
for the season, at fully as high rents as usual ; but there
is a growing disinclination on the part of Engish sports-
men to rent highland shootings, particularly fur a term
of years, unless a more strict system of preservation he
maintained. This is one of those evils of which the
knowledge of its existence does not constitute half its
cure; for where there is so immense an extent of moun-
tain ground to be watched-so great faculties for carry-
olir the birds to.market, and so high a price obtained fer
them there, it is hardly pos.sible to establish any system
Of surveillance to operate as an effectual check to poach-
ing. We suspect, also, that although We hear little of
their " day's baggings," the shepherds are fully as success-
ful shots as the licensed sportsmen ; and, knowing every
inch of the ground, and having watched the covies from
the clay they chipped the shell, they are enabled to make
up for the disadvantages under which they ply their
favourite and lucrative calling. Although they are thus-
enabled to share the honours of the field with the legiti-
mate owners, even during the height of the season, it is
chiefly after the ardour of the latter has cooled, that the
depredations of the poacher are carried on to the greatest
extent. So long, therefore, as the. sale of game is legal-
ised for the period permitted at present, we suspect there
can be no effectunl remedy for the evil complained of.-7-
Its extent might, however, be mitigated by the proprietor
or tenant giviog the shepherds a greater interest in th...
preservation of the game than in its destruction.—Perth
Courier.

, Aux/LIARY FORCE—BRIGtiToN, JULY 18.--It has been. at.
tetiii;teit to raise a arty of recruits in this town for the service
of the. •I Queou of Spain." A bill:headed " Liberty!" (I)
mark, has had the effect of drawing from the liar-
ijett of the Irish Channel some thirty or forty disorderlies,. also
aver flueeh the recruitilig sergeant of the shilling, refused to
aceohip..iny him to Portsmouth. An indescribable scene of
drulikenuesq and confusion last night ensued, till the sergeant
and the Jew officers who accompanied him were compelled to
give up ;ell thoUghtt of reclaiming their hopeful squadron, The
recruit:ug ply left Brighton this 'Morning, succeeded
in enlisting about half a dozen, who, it is thought, will return be-
fore fley get to their destination.