2 
] 
57 
a cock, and the keeper, a winged grouse, jump upin front. Had 
I but had the courage of my convictions, and put my favorite 
falcon, called “ Taillie” from her broken tail—a Welsh hawk 
she, from the Glamorgan precipices, of the Worms Head, aloft, 
then she would have probably been saved much trouble, and we 
should have lost a glorious sight, and flight, for the day was 
stilly, bright, and lovely, and the sea loch and its waves sparkled 
in the sun. No; I took her on my fist, and struck her hood in 
readiness, half disposed to believe in McPhee the gamekeeper. 
Just where I saw the bird spring, suddenly up went a fine 
woodcock. No winged bird she, but in full possession of the 
excellent pair, that had not long before, brought her, (I suppose, 
for we do not know) from Finland, or elsewhere in the North, 
to Argyl. I unhooded and cast “Taillie” after her, and the 
flight began. This woodcock would have much astonished 
sportsmen only used to their actions in a thick cover. Up and 
up she went in long zig-zags, and precisely the style and action 
of her small relative, Scolopax Gallinago, the common snipe, but 
mute. The falcon mounted rapidly in her train, though at a 
considerable disadvantage at first. I saw it was going to be a 
long affair, got out my glasses, and lay down on the heather, 
and on one side, was my then falconer, Jamie Barr, one of 
the well-known family of Scotch falconers. There were once 
a father and three sons of that name (all falconers by 
profession), with most acute and trained vision, and on the 
other side the proud possessor of the best pair of eyes in 
all Argyl, if not in the West of Scotland—the so-called 
“‘foxhunter’s ” son, my gillie, Sandy Kennedy. This man got 
much employment in seeking sheep lost on the hills and moun- 
tains, and long practice had rendered his ancestral eyesight 
(his father’s had been as good) equal to most glasses on the 
moor. The woodcock, with the falcon below and behind her, did 
not dare to come down or return—vestigia nulla retrorswm was 
her motto—and soon the pair of dots were high over the sea 
loch, there a mile wide, the cock’s point being evidently Morven, 
on the other side of the strait. Soon I called out, “I can 
see but one.” Presently from Barr came—“ I canna see them;”’ 
