A HIGHLAND LAIRD 33 



the glimpses of solitude-loving beasts and birds that 

 you are likely to get if you are in luck. In spite of 

 the persecutions of the agents of ornithologists, more 

 than one pair of golden eagles have their eyries in the 

 hills that overhang Lochlyle ; and they may often be 

 seen sweeping round overhead, as if they felt them- 

 selves monarchs of all they surveyed, although they 

 prudently keep themselves well out of rifle-shot. 

 There are sea-eagles, too, among the rocks that hang 

 over the ocean, and a pair of peregrine falcons have 

 built since the memory of man in an inaccessible cliff 

 in the laird's deer-forest. Ten to one you may catch 

 sight of a sleek though sinewy old mountain-fox, 

 taking himself leisurely off in the broad daylight to 

 his quarters in one of the many cairns around you. 

 You have startled him probably from his slumbers in 

 the heather where he laid himself up after a heavy 

 meal and a long night of successful foraging. There 

 is a handsome price set upon his head, and it is hard 

 to say whether the shepherds or the keepers hate him 

 with a more perfect hatred ; nor is there any better 

 fun, by the by, to be had on an off-day than drawing 

 one of these stone-heaps for a vixen and her litter, with 

 a few frantic couples of varmint-terriers. Before you 

 get to the crest of the lower hills, the mountain-hares 

 have been lolloping up before you by dozens, like 

 rabbits disturbed at feeding-time on the skirts of a 

 low-country warren. Troublesome as they are to the 

 best-broken dogs, you feel you could very easily spare 

 them ; yet they make capital subjects for a Highland 



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