discovered, would be subjected to a severe punishment.

But Mr St John asserts the existence of a different class of poachers, whose exploits, if real, are a deep reproach to the vigilance of our respected friends the Sheriffs of Inverness, Ross, and Moray, as also to the Substitutes and their Fiscals. According to the accounts which have reached him, and which he seems implicitly to believe, there are, at this moment, gangs of caterans existing among the mountains, who follow no other occupation whatever than that of poaching. This they do not even affect to disguise. They make a good income by the sale of game, and by breaking dogs—they take the crown of the causeway in the country towns, where they are perfectly well known, and where the men give them "plenty of walking-room." On such occasions, they are accompanied with a couple of magnificent stag-hounds, and in this guise they venture undauntedly beneath the very nose of "ta Phuscal!" The Highland poacher, says Mr St John, "is a bold fearless fellow, shooting openly by daylight, taking his sport in the same manner as the laird, or the Sassenach who rents the ground." That is to say, this outlaw, who has a sheiling or a bothy on the laird's ground—for a man cannot live in the Highlands without a roof to shelter him—shoots as openly on these grounds as the laird himself, or the party who has rented them for the season! If this be the case, the breed of Highland proprietors—ay, and of Highland keepers—must have degenerated sadly during the last few years. The idea that any such character would be permitted by even the tamest Dumbiedykes to continue a permanent resident upon his lands, is perfectly preposterous. Game is not considered as a matter of such slight import in any part of the Highlands; neither is the arm of the law so weak, that it does not interfere with most rapid and salutary effect. No professed poacher, we aver, dare shoot openly upon the lands of the laird by whose tenure or sufferance he maintains a roof above his head; and it would be a libel upon those high-minded gentlemen to suppose, that they knowingly gave countenance to any such character, on the tacit understanding that their property should be spared while that of their neighbours was invaded. In less than a week after the information was given, the ruffian would be without any covering to his head, save that which would be afforded him by the arches of the Inverness or Fort-William jail.

Long tracts of country there are, comparatively unvisited—for example, the district around Lochs Ericht and Lydoch, and the deserts towards the head of the Spey. Yet, even there, the poacher is a marked man. The necessity of finding a market for the produce of his spoil, lays him open immediately to observation. If he chooses to burrow with the badger, he may be said to have deserted his trade. He cannot by any possibility, let him do what he will, elude the vigilance of the keeper; and, if known, he is within the clutches of the law without the necessity of immediate apprehension.

The truth of the matter is, that the poachers have no longer to deal directly with the lairds. The number of moors which are rented to Englishmen is now very great; and it is principally from these that the depredators reap their harvest. Accordingly, no pains are spared to impress the Sassenach with an exaggerated idea of the lawlessness of the Gael, in every thing relating to the game-laws and the statutes of the excise. The right of the people to poach is asserted as a kind of indefeasible servitude which the law winks at, because it cannot control; and we fear that, in some cases, the keepers, who care nothing for the new-comers, indirectly lend themselves to the delusion. The Englishman, on arriving at the moor which he has rented, is informed that he must either compromise with the poachers, or submit to the loss of his game—a kind of treaty which, we believe, is pretty often made in the manner related by Mr St John.