148 NATURAL HISTOEY AND 



my discovery, habit and practice soon made the 

 necessary distance-calculation quite natural, and 

 now my first impulse on seeing any bird flying 

 towards me is to note its speed and distance, and 

 allow accordingly. 



My second low game-day was to Eobodach, a 

 farm lying at the foot of the narrow part of the 

 Kyles. Partridges have bred well there this year, 

 and every autumn an enormous flock of tempting 

 but unapproachable black game haunt the hill-side, 

 feeding morning and evening on the corn stubbles. 

 An unbroken heather-beat of six miles from Kames 

 Castle ends in Eobodach fields, so I shot along the 

 moor edge to this partridge ground, killing on my 

 way one and a half brace black game, a grouse, 

 and three large red hares. After two o'clock, with 

 fresh dogs, I increased my bag by four and a half 

 brace of partridges and another couple of hares. 

 Oddly enough, made the same score of partridges 

 on both beats, and with the same number of shots, 

 for I only missed a second-barrel bird each day. 



Most of the Eobodach partridges, when sprung, 

 having found safety in the copsewood flank- 

 ing the stubble and turnip fields, on my next 



