202 FIELD NOTES FOR THE YEAR. 



winter sun on the bright trunks of the fir trees, contrasted 

 as it was with the gloomy darkness of their foliage, when 1 

 heard the foot of a roe as it came towards me, ventre a terre. 

 Taking a cool aim I sent a cartridge through the poor 

 animal's head, who, of course, fell rolling over like a rabbit. 

 I went up in order to bleed her, according to rule, when just 

 as I was knife in hand, I heard the hounds coming up in 

 chase of another roe. I dropped the knife on the heather, 

 and at that instant the dying roe gave an expiring plunge, as 

 animals almost always do when shot in the head. Her hind 

 foot struck the hilt of the couteau de cJiasse, driving it straight 

 into my foot. Having, not without some little difficulty, 

 drawn it out, I had next to cut off my shoe, when the blood 

 came out like a jet d'eau. Making a tourniquet of my 

 handkerchief and a bit of stick, I managed to stop the 

 bleeding, not however before I began to feel a little faint. 

 Then not waiting for my companions, who were at a distant 

 part of the woods, I hobbled off to a forester's house, where I 

 rebound the cut, and having directed the man where to find 

 the roe, and to tell the other shooters that I had left the 

 woods, I made my way homewards as well as I could, and 

 luckily meeting on the road one of my servants exercising a 

 pony, I got home without more inconvenience, but I had to 

 pass many a long day upon a sofa. Had a similar accident 

 happened on some of the wild and distant mountains of the 

 country where I often shoot, I should probably not have been 

 seen again, till the ravens and the storms of winter had left 

 nothing but my bones. From such slight and trivial causes 

 do accidents sometimes happen to remind us how helpless we 

 all are. 



In the low parts of Morayshire the snow seldom lies long, 

 and consequently after every lengthened snow-storm there is 

 a- constant migration not only of wild-fowl of all kinds, but 

 also of partridges and other game, who come down to the bay 

 and shore from the higher parts of the district, where the 

 ground is more completely covered with snow, the depth of 

 which decreases gradually as one recedes from the shore. 



A more strikingly varied drive of twenty miles can scarcely 

 be taken than from the Spey at Grantowii down to Torres 

 on the sea-side near the mouth of the Findhorn river. After 

 emerging from the woods of Castle Grant, in the immediate 

 vinicity of the Spey, and that curiously-built place Gran- 

 town, with its wide street of houses, almost wholly inhabited 



