IN THE HIGHLANDS 67 



tlie sheep by the throat, the sheep had torn downhill, and 

 just as it was on the point of giving in from loss of blood 

 had jammed itself with all its might against the gravel 

 bank. Unfortunately for the marten, there was a sharp 

 stone sticking out of the bank, and the sheep, with more 

 luck, I fancy, than good management, had rammed the 

 marten, about the region of the heart, against this stone 

 and so had its revenge. I doubt whether anyone else 

 has ever had such an experience. 



Before finishing my marten stories I shall tell what 

 happened at Inverewe about the forties. Lambs and 

 sheep were being killed, and the fox-hunter was sent for. 

 Right up on a very wild part of the property in Carn 

 na craoibhe caorainn (the Cairn of the Rowan-tree), 

 near the Fionn Loch, the hounds had several times 

 lost the scent of what was supposed to be a fox at the 

 foot of an enormous perched boulder which we now 

 call Clach mhor nan Taghan (the Great Stone of the 

 Martens). To look at the boulder one would imagine 

 it was impossible for anything but a bird to alight on 

 its top, but a pair of martens had managed to do so 

 by making tremendous springs from the ground on to a 

 slight ledge half-way up the stone. There was a huge 

 mass of peat and heather on the top of the boulder. 



Spades having been sent for, the martens were un- 

 earthed, and, as they sprang from the diggers, they 

 and their young ones jumped into the mouths of the 

 fox-hounds and lurchers. Thus ended the martens of 

 " Castle Marten," as a friend of mine, the late Dr. Warre 

 of Eton College, christened the boulder. Readers will 

 wonder that martens would kill sheep. I was once, 



