SPORT OF BUTE. 155 



close to the sea. Both breed freely on the Bute 

 moors ; and last summer, when a pair of curlews 

 were screaming and dodging our path, my re- 

 triever made a sudden stop at my heel. On giving 

 him leave, he coolly walked a little way and laid 

 hold of what (from the commotion it made) I 

 fancied a leveret. The prisoner, a young curlew, 

 was delivered up to me unhurt, and nearly the 

 size of its equally noisy parents. 



A moor lochan, imbedded among the very peaks 

 of the North Bute hills, is the chosen resort of 

 moss ducks. The loch is about half a mile in 

 circumference, and its situation so retired as to 

 attract, in addition to the ducks, about a score of 

 herons. On account of the bare flat banks, stalk- 

 ing is impossible ; but even were it otherwise, the 

 herons seem to have constituted themselves the 

 sentries of the loch, and, taking post all round it, 

 their telescope necks effectually stop all stealthy 

 intrusion. One day, when grouse-shooting round 

 this loch, I noticed that the sentinels were absent. 

 Coupling my setters, and giving them in charge of 

 a gillie, I managed, by great care and waste of 

 time, to fire a random shot into the thick of the 



