On bleak Scottish moors and soft, mossy hills, the oldest and grandest theme park in the world rose on Aug. 12. The vast and sprawling sporting estates that possess most of Scotland's surface thrummed with the frantically beating wings of grouse and echo to the gunshot, bravo and jolly well done. The annual game-bird cannonball run has begun. Do creatures that survive to breed early next spring hold a secret ceremony down among the bracken to celebrate their escape?
Perhaps, too, there are thousands among Europe's party elite who believe that Scotland truly is an under-populated wilderness where you shoot your dinner by day and dance on your tiptoes by night alongside men with skirts and maidens with marble bosoms. From now until the end of January this other Scotland comes to life as if emerging from another dimension. Other people, urban troglodytes that they are, forever seek to curb the rich man's pleasures and need to be reminded of something meaningful and tangible that comes out of this summer ritual: grouse-shooting brings £30 million to the Scottish economy while some estimate that country sports can inject £350 million annually to the nation's account.
It's not difficult to see how those figures are reached. Last month a week of fishing and stalking in Sutherland's Reay forest estate was being offered for £6,500. There are red stags and Atlantic salmon to be had. We are told further that two rods are available on the river Laxford, in the Scottish Highlands, and there are 10 stags. There is accommodation for 13 with the services of a cook and housekeeper.