AN INTELLIGENT FOX-HOUND. 33 



and then he trotted slowly up the shoulder of the hill. In 

 my numerous deer-stalking excursions I certainly never was 

 so near to an unwounded deer ; he had evidently been living 

 in solitary security for some time on the island, and feeding 

 on the coarse grass and plants. He probably had been there 

 ever since lie had cast his horns, as the new ones were about 

 five or six inches in length. 



While on this island, too, another interesting incident look 

 place. We heard the baying of a hound on the shore. At 

 first I imagined that some fox-hunter's dog had strayed away 

 in pursuit of and was still running a fox or deer ; but on 

 looking with my glass, I saw a fine fox-hound sitting on a 

 point of land which reached into the lake, and howling in a 

 manner which plainly showed he had lost his master ; and 

 having heard me fire at a crow, he imagined that I was the 

 person he was in search of. After howling for a minute or 

 two, till the hills around echoed with his deep voice, the 

 gallant dog swam into the loch, and made for an island on 

 which I had fired at a grey crow. I saw him land and, 

 with nose to the ground, take up our track ; but after a little 

 hesitation he found that the scent was not that of his master, 

 nor of any one he knew, so plunging into the loch again he 

 made for the main land, and having reached it after a stout 

 battle with the waves (the wind then being high), he 

 continued his search round the shore of the lake, taking, 

 however, no further notice of us, although I fired one or two 

 more shots within his hearing. The instinct and reasoning 

 of the dog struck me as very great in his manner of trying if 

 we belonged to the party who had been up to the high 

 ground before daybreak in pursuit of a lamb-killing fox ; for 

 we afterwards heard that the fox-hunter of the district had 

 been following his avocation on the heights of Ben Cleebrick 

 that morning, and that some of his dogs had strayed away 

 from him in pursuit, probably, of a deer, though he owned 

 only to their having followed a fox. 



As we were rowing back to the point where we launched 

 the boat, we suddenly came upon no less than six of those 

 beautiful birds, the black-throated diver. We pursued them 

 immediately, and drove them up into a small bay of the 

 lake : there after much trouble we managed to shoot one, the 

 rest escaping by diving under the boat or round it, and 

 getting off into the wide part of the loch. None of them 

 attempted to take flight, although so hard pressed and 



