184 GLENFALLOCH ROES. 



shot at a noble hart. Very different is the pursuit 

 of the roe. The shooter is, or ought to be, left to 

 his own unaided powers, and many a blunder will 

 he perpetrate, and many a hard day's work under- 

 go, before he acquires the skill to warrant success. 

 Confidence, of course, grows in proportion to the 

 skill, but many sportsmen give up heart ere they 

 have gained either, and naturally stigmatise " the 

 following of the roe" as "dull work," and point 

 perhaps to the few wretched specimens they have 

 slain out of season as evidences that roes are 

 equally unsatisfactory both when hunted and on 

 the table. 



I have been assured by a Fife proprietor that 

 roes are migratory in the border counties. They 

 come down, he said, from the Highlands in num- 

 bers during severe weather, returning to their hills 

 again when the storms abated, exactly like deer. 

 In my Highland shootings, however, I never 

 noticed any decrease of roes when the winters 

 were at their roughest; and had there been an 

 exodus from my woods I must have perceived it, 

 as I always knew well before Christmas what roe- 

 deer were on the ground. 



