164 A HUNDKED YEAKS 



him, though he did knock over a few. But he did one 

 thing which I never happened to have seen done before, 

 nor have I seen it done since. A great black-backed 

 gull, one of those cruel marine vultures, measuring some- 

 times nearly six feet from tip to tip of their wings, rose off 

 a rock on the approach of the boat and soared high up 

 over us. Sir Alexander's gun was loaded with one of 

 Eley's wire cartridges, which were then the fashion, and 

 he fired. There was a strong breeze blowing, and the 

 gull fell straight down on to the water, though it was 

 quite alive, and the wing was blown away in quite 

 another direction by the wind ; it had been cut clean off 

 by the cartridge, which had failed to burst. 



The luncheon was not the worst part of the outing. 

 It was provided by my uncle, and was composed of the 

 produce of his island. The previous day there had been 

 an extra low spring tide, a flat, calm, clear sky, and a 

 bright sun ; and he had been out with his landing-net at 

 the end of a very long pole, and had scooped up quantities 

 of the most lovely oysters and big clams. So what 

 with the wonderful butter and cheese from his model 

 dairy and the delicious scones and oat-cakes, oysters and 

 clams, our hero was made very happy in spite of having 

 missed a few pigeons, and declared it was the best 

 alfresco luncheon he had ever sat down to. 



In my young days I was taken up rather more with 

 shooting than with fishing . Owing to my living generally 

 at Gairloch, I was far away from the Fionn Loch, and 

 only occasionally able to make expeditions to it. Some- 

 times when we wanted to make sure of showing some 

 friend a sample of the big Fionn Loch trout we would 



