IN FOREST AND ON HILL 251 



from anywhere nearer, when of a sudden a phantom 

 form flits over a low-hanging branch, and lights softly 

 as a snowflake in the open, looking back and listening 

 intently with flashes of startled curiosity in the gentle 

 hazel eye. Nothing in the animal world is more 

 graceful, and we suspect that the most prosaic of 

 sportsmen must have a qualm when he sees the em- 

 bodied poetry of the pose collapse under the murderous 

 charge of buck-shot. The snap taken at the flying 

 form that merely shoots into sight to vanish again 

 instantaneously is of course a different thing altogether. 

 Then you think of nothing but the miss or the kill 

 as you rush forward to search the cover, and are too 

 pleased with your quickness to feel a touch of remorse 

 when you come upon the body of the slaughtered 

 beauty. Shooting over a little pack of lively beagles, 

 too, is more exciting, if less destructive, than turning 

 out with a single experienced hound. And we have 

 had better sport than on many a more solemn occasion, 

 when we have merely taken the roe as they came in 

 the course of a mixed day ; for they will lie like 

 rabbits till you almost set your foot upon them, under 

 the branches of the scattered trees, on the banks of the 

 beautiful West Highland lakes. The mischief is, that 

 when your main object is woodcock, and one barrel is 

 charged with small shot, while in the other there is 

 a cartridge loaded with B.B., you are apt to make a 

 mistake in the hurry of the moment, if you spring a 

 deer where you were looking out for a bird. And 

 the roe is almost as clever as the woodcock in in- 



