74 FIELD AND FERN. 



Duke of Gordon, Lord Lovat, Mr. Davidson of Tul- 

 loch, and others held races nearly fifty years ago. 

 This illusion, or some unconscious sympathy with the 

 spot must have led the late Mr. Charles Greville to 

 stray three miles down it, on his return from Dun- 

 robin, while the mail with his valet and portman- 

 teau was stealing ahead through the pine woods of 

 Calrossie. Luckily Mr. Kenneth Murray was driving 

 home, and, seeing an old gentleman quite beat with 

 fatigue, offered to take him back to Tain, little know- 

 ing till they exchanged cards what an eminent pilgrim 

 he had succoured. The Mhor, as you see it from 

 the high road, strongly resembles the ground of the 

 Waterloo Cup Wednesday ; and it has been tenanted 

 by many a dark-coloured, straight-backed hare, as 

 Gordon Castle greyhounds have known to their 

 cost. The Calrossie Woods produce rather more 

 mixed sporting, and about one thousand squirrels and 

 two hundred and fifty brace of woodcocks were killed 

 out of them recently in one year alone. 



The cultivated part of Ross-shire is a mere fringe 

 of the Moors, and the other nine- tenths of the county 

 up to the shores of the Atlantic are devoted to grouse, 

 sheep, deer, and crofters. The last-named have few 

 sources of existence save fishing. If they are seized 

 with " the low ambition of rising in the world," and 

 come East for the purpose, they make good work- 

 men, and are content like the rest of the labourers 

 with their cup of coffee ; but their Gaelic tongue 

 is sadly against them. The tod-hunters, with their 



