Al7TUMNS IN ARGYLL.*

MR. GATHORNE-HARDY has written a book which will be cherished by all lovers of- Highland sport, and many who have never held a rod or rifle in their hand. For it is no mere sporting chronicle and dull record of successes and failures, but a genuine contribution to the literature of wild life in Scotland, where the naturalist's interest is as strong as the sportsman's, and the whole narrative is permeated with an honest affection for the people and the places among

• Autumns in Argyllshire with Rod and Gun. By the Hon. A. E. Gathorno. Hardy. With Mnstrations by Archibald Thorbnrn. London : Longmans and Co. [10a. ad.]

which he has spent his autumns. It is done on a modest scale, without the gigantic wealth of observation which has made St. John and Colquhoun classics, but with something of their enthusiasm and love of the hills and waters. The studies are all concerned with one little part of Argyll- shire, which lies around the beautiful estate of Poltalloch ; but since the part contains within itself all varieties of land- scape and is a veritable sportsman's paradise, Mr. Gathorne- Hardy has touched upon almost every aide of Scottish sport. He makes no pretension to chronicle great records. "I have jotted down from time to time," he says, " these personal reminiscences of various kinds of sport as typical, not of extraordinary successes, but of fairly normal experiences " ; and he adds elsewhere: " Many deer are doubtless missed upon the hillside, but few indeed in the smoking-room or in the pages of sporting chronicles." Few indeed ; and this makes the dreariness of so many sportsmen's note-books, where bird and beast are slain with monotonous regularity. Mr. Gathorne-Hardy, to be sure, has some notable experiences to record, but they are told modestly and incidentally, and, as in St. John, it is the habits of the wild creatures, the glories of morning and evening in the hills, the mere remembrance of pleasant expeditions, which are the author's chief interest. And it is an interest which his readers share, for to many of us, when other books become a weariness and fiction palls, there will always be a charm in the wholesome volumes which recall, however faintly, those holidayings and enterprises which lie like oases in the desert of a busy man's life.

In the locality which the author describes every species of Highland game, except ptarmigan and capercailzie, can be found. The hills are, of course, too low for ptarmigan, but with the present extension of the capercailzie's habitat, there is no reason why it should not again become plentiful in this neighbourhood. The rare pine-marten has been seen on the estate, and a wild cat was shot by the present owner. Rabbits, which were only introduced into Argyll in 1845, are now so numerous as to be a pest, and the keepers kill on an average six thousand couple in the winter months. The eagle-owl and the grey phalarope are occasional visitors, and two of the rarest of Scottish birds, the great snowy owl and the brown snipe, have been seen. Red-deer, roe and fallow deer among the wood and hills, a small salmon river, numerous hill- lochs, great stretches of moor and bog, and a curiously in- dented sea-coast fringed with islands make the place a happy hunting ground for the naturalist. Mr. Gathorne-Hardy, who has had many years of experience in Scotland, contrasts the present ease of travel and the luxurious surroundings of sport with the old days when people were content to rough it in leaky shooting-lodges and comfortless inns. It would be vain to say that sport is bettered in our times, but it is easier to come by. " I remember," he says, " the late laird of Poltalloch, who died in 1893, telling me how his father used to ride the whole way from London, purchasing his horse

and having his saddle made before starting The journey then took three weeks. Now you may go to the theatre in London one evening, and arrive at Poltalloch in time for luncheon on the next day." The attendant evil is that while the old traditions of Scottish sport were in favour of comparative cheapness, the new tradition is all the other way. We agree with Mr. Gathorne-Hardy in thinking that £2 for each brace of grouse as a rough estimate for the cost of sporting rights is nearer the mark than Mr. Aflalo's £1. This is very different from the old days of Scrope and St. John, when " every casual visitor to the village inn or manse was free to range bill or riverside after stag, muirfowl, or salmon."

The book consists of a series of essays, each an account of a day's experience in some particular sport. In " Fallow deer at Home " we have a spirited narrative of a day's driving, with guns posted at different parts of the hill; where the keenest sportsman is torn betwixt a perpetual struggle with midges and the excitement of waiting for the deer. Some- times to the seeing eye there come curious little glimpses of wild Nature, like the unforgettable incidents in the Sobieski Stuarts' " Lays of the Deer Forests." "In one single August morning," says Mr. Gathorne-Hardy, " I have seen no less than eight woodcocks flushed, each carrying a young one curiously huddled up between ite beak and feet ; and, on another occasion, one ran up within a. yard of me, snapping its bill and making a curious hissing noise when I picked up

its half-grown baby." In the chapter on the " Roe " he believes very rightly in posting guns and drawing the cover with a scratch pack of hounds. He differs from Colquhoun and St. John in using ball instead of shot, "preferring not to pull the trigger of a shot-gan at an object like a calf." In " Deer-stalking," as in the second paper on " Seal-shooting," the venue is changed, and instead of Poltalloch, we have Lord Dalhousie's forest of Invermark and the late Sir John Fowler's forest of Braemore. Here we think the author least interest- ing, possibly because deer-stalking is a subject which of late years has been so over-written that it is almost impossible to say anything fresh. Perhaps the pleasantest chapters in the book are those called the " Herds of Proteus " and " Out of the Depths," narratives of seal-stalking and dredging in that wonderful Western sea which is so unlike any other sea we know. Here is Mr. Gathorne-Hardy's description of it :-

" A sea which, at the rise and fall of the tide, rushes and eddies round innumerable rocks and islands, whirling and roar- ing like a mill-race at the rate of eight or nine knots an hour- s sea as clear as a Hampshire trout-stream, the calm recesses of which the eye may penetrate to a depth that I am afraid to state in figures for fear I should be accused of exaggeratioa."

And there are other things to be seen besides rare crustacea, for you may notice " a herd of Highland cattle swimming across

the half-mile of water which separates them from the main- land, a first stage on their journey to Falkirk Tryst." Now,

alas ! the cheap carriage of livestock has all but killed the Tryst, and this is a sight which will soon be unknown. But on

the whole, if we had to give our vote for the best papers, it would

be for the angling sketches, and perhaps for " Chill October." The Add is a remarkable stream, which "rises and falls with

the swiftness of a speculative Stock Exchange security," and creeps to the sea through a flat bog. Mr. Gathorne-Hardy fishes with droppers, which would be possible only on a water of this kind. There is a most sensational account—the one piece of record-breaking in the book—of a dry week in the great drought of 1894, when he caught in five days thirty-five salmon ranging from five to seventeen pounds with a small ten-foot single-handed trout rod. In " Chill October," which recounts a day's rough-shooting, the bag is also a kind of record, being sixty-five head and ten varieties. Mr. Gathorne- Hardy has the most catholic tastes, and no form of sport comes amiss which takes him out to the hills and gives him the pleasure of observation and pursuit. Shooting over dogs and driving, stalking and beating, salmon-fishing and loch- fishing, all are described with equal zest, but if we may risk a guess, we should say that salmon-fishing was his favourite. At any rate, it gives him occasion for a piece of sentimental reflection, which is only too common with those who can only spend short autumns in Argyll. He tells of the dreariness of a September Session in London, with the thermometer at 85°:

" In fancy I am already plodding along the well-known banks, the whistle of the curlew and the plover sounding in my ears. The snipe startle me as they rise under my feet ; the great herons flap lazily away as I turn a corner just above them ; the merganser brings its numerous family up the stream between

the high banks into the very pool I am fishing The grouse crow upon the oat•stubbles beside me, or the old black- cocks dash over my head in flocks of ten and fourteen. Perhaps there may be a hen harrier beating the moss beside me, with the regularity of a pointer, or a merlin hawking some lark or pipit ; and whether the fish rise, as they do sometimes, or whether they decline, as they do more often, I shall return peaceful and con- tented to a well-earned dinner, and a sleep unbroken by dreams of political warfare."

One word must be said of the illustrations. Mr. Thorburn

is easily our foremost drawer of sporting animals, and in the eight illustrations to this book he has reached his best. The drawings of " The Old River," " A Capital Point," and " An Improvised Drive" seem to us quite remarkable for their beauty and fidelity.