SHEPHERDS' MODE OF POACHING. 91 



the burnside till he arrives at the favourite spot of grass. 

 The shepherd, knowing well that the deer will continue on 

 this feeding spot until disturbed, watches his opportunity 

 when the forester has taken some other direction, or has not 

 left his home, or in fact when the coast is clear : he then 

 takes his gun out of the stock, and easily concealing the two 

 parts till he is safe in the solitudes of the mountain, he 

 betakes himself to some hiding-place within an easy shot and 

 to leeward of the place which he well knows the stag will 

 visit at the feeding time. Having looked well to his copper 

 cap or priming, he waits patiently till the animal is within 

 twenty or thirty yards of him, when a handful of slugs or a 

 bullet settles the business. The four quarters are then con- 

 veyed home as convenience and opportunity suit. If the 

 antlers are good, they are another source of profit, there being 

 a ready sale for them to some gun-maker or bird-stuffer, 

 many of whom have constant correspondence with the 

 shepherds, keepers, &c., for the purpose of buying deers' 

 heads, birds' eggs, skins, &c., which they resell to visitors at 

 Inverness, or even to sportsmen who, taking the stag's head 

 to England with them, pass it off as a trophy of their own 

 skill and prowess. I have known instances of this kind, 

 although it is difficult to understand how a man can exhibit 

 as his own shooting, and nail up over his hall-door, a 

 stag's head, which he has bought for three or four pounds 

 instead of shooting it, without being ashamed to behold 

 such a memento of his own weakness and want of good 

 faith. 



In my opinion, the general run of the old stags' heads in 

 Sutherlandshire are the handsomest of any in Scotland, in 

 the way the horns are set on the head and in the shape of 

 the horns themselves. The largest and oldest heads that I 

 have seen in that county form a fine, widely-stretched 

 circle, the tops of the antlers arching inwards towards each 

 other. I never myself saw horns with so fine a spread and 

 arch in any other county, though I do not pretend to say 

 that such may not be seen elsewhere. A nobler sight than a 

 herd of well-antlered stags standing clearly defined on the 

 horizon, and combined with the surrounding scenery and all 

 the et cceteras of the country which they inhabit, can scarcely 

 be imagined. On the wide grassy plains between Loch Shin 

 and Aultnaharrow, and between Ben Hee and Ben Cleebrick, 

 I have generally seen a number of hinds near the roadside ; 



