102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



unapproachable. In the New Statistical Account of North Uist 

 we find the following passage, which is worth repeating: — 



" The mode of stalking these is so peculiar that we are tempted 

 briefly to describe it. The sportsmen rendezvous at a place pre- 

 viously fixed upon, and each, with an attendant, is appointed to a 

 pass along the lakes, which he cautiously approaches, and when all 

 are presumed to be at their stations, another party with a small 

 boat, provided for the purpose, come up as quietly as possible. 

 The Deer, scared from their fastnesses in the islands, make for some 

 of the passes, and it very rarely happens that a chance of a shot is 

 not afforded to some one or more of the sportsmen concealed under 

 the cover of the heather." 



During many years, however, none were killed at all; still they 

 seemed to be decreasing in numbers. The gamekeeper at Loch 

 Maddy in 1870 informed me that the practice of driving them had 

 been given up, and that any which were ever killed were killed by 

 fail' stalking. 



On the 10th May, 1870, when our ghillie — Robert Ross,* a 

 Sutherland man — landed upon an island upon a loch near Loch 

 Maddy, for the purpose of digging out a nest of Shiel-ducks' eggs, 

 a stag jumped up from a hollow in the island almost at his feet. 

 Robert noticed that it was lug-marked, and afterwards we were 

 told that it was the solitary introduced stag from Skye. 



In South Uist, though once plentiful, Deer are now extinct. In 

 1842 there was only a single hind in the whole parish, the rest 

 having found their way north wards, t 



They were extinct in Barra at that date, though many antlers 

 found in the mosses testify to their former occurrence there. | 



Obs. American Deer (sp. 1) have lately been introduced by Lord 

 Dunmore to the Island of Harmetray in the Sound of Harris. 



The melancholy death of poor Ross happened in the severe snow- 

 storms of the late winter. On the 10th of January, 1879, he was returning 

 home to Inverpolly from Loch Inver, in Sutherland, and while taking a 

 short cut from the high-road to the house, his foot slipped near the top of a 

 rock, and his dead body was found two days afterwards, with one of the 

 arms broken, and otherwise sadly bruised. All our Sutherland party missed 

 his cheerful companionship during this summer, none, perhaps, more than 

 myself, who had known him for upwards of fourteen years. 



f New Stat. Accl., Inverness, p. 165. Z New Stat. Acct., No. xxxi., p. 185. 



