i26 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



the move away from its point of origin, for the deer 

 is hardly less attentive to sounds than to smells. 

 As old Scrope puts it, the red-deer " takes the 

 note of alarm from every living thing on the 

 moor " and I have myself seen a bunch of them 

 suddenly lift their heads on the first cry of an 

 anxious redshank, whose family feeding-ground 

 I had invaded. Here the effect of the keeper's 

 whistle was very different. From three sides 

 the fourth side was a loch shore hinds began 

 to troop in till there were about thirty of them 

 in the space of three acres. They came quite close 

 up to their friend of the snowy days, and followed 

 the two of us in a troop till we were a considerable 

 distance beyond the feeding-ground. None of 

 these deer had been hand-reared or taken from 

 their dams in youth. Their tameness was a result 

 of their winter feeding and nothing else. 



