IN THE HIGHLANDS 125 



escaping. Extra old cocks they were, as most of them 

 had white feathers about their heads and white whiskers ! 

 We often wondered where they had come from. 



I occasionally had pretty good days at woodcock. 

 Perhaps my best day away from home was once when I 

 was staying at Invermoriston Hotel with my brother. 

 Sir Kenneth Mackenzie, our host being the late Lord 

 Lovat, who had with him his two brothers, Colonel 

 Henry and Colonel Alastair Eraser. We shot part of three 

 short December days, and got, if I remember rightly, 

 146 woodcock, besides hinds and roedeer, etc., which was 

 supposed to be a record bag in those days. Once at 

 Inverewe a friend and I got fifty-two cock in two con- 

 secutive days, and at Shieldaig, on the south side of the 

 parish, the late John Bateson and I had a good day. 

 He got eleven and I nine before luncheon, and after 

 lunch I got eleven and he got nine — forty in all. The 

 keepers sometimes did well right out on the open moors, 

 when after their traps. I remember my keeper getting 

 eighteen woodcock one day with only a retriever along 

 with him, and another day twenty-two in snow by 

 walking along the old whin hedges in Isle Ewe. 



I have made many a curious shot in the course of my 

 life. I have twice killed two black-cocks on the wing 

 with one shot, and one day, at the side of the public road, 

 Fan pointed at a clump of bracken, hidden in which 

 was the best covey of black game I ever came across. 

 They began to get up in ones and twos, and I shot five 

 young cocks, leaving the old grey-hen and her four 

 daughters for stock. Another day an old friend of 

 mine, Anthony Hamond of Westacre, and I were 



