WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



roe with No. 6 shot, as when thev are gfoine across and are 

 shot well forward, they are as easy to kill as a hare, though 

 they will carry off a great deal of shot if hit too far behind. 

 No one should ever shoot roe without some well-trained 

 dog, to follow them when wounded; as no animal is more 

 often lost when mortally wounded. 



Where numerous, roe are very mischievous to both corn 

 and turnips, eating and destroying great quantities, and as 

 they feed generally in the dark, lying still all day, their de- 

 vastations are difficult to guard against. Their acute sense 

 of smelling enables them to detect the approach of any 

 danger, when they bound off to their coverts, ready to re- 

 turn as soon as it is past. In April they go great distances 

 to feed on the clover-fields, where the young plants are 

 then just springing up. In autumn, the ripening oats are 

 their favourite food, and in winter, the turnips, wherever 

 these crops are at hand, or within reach from the woods. A 

 curious and melancholyaccident happened in a parish situ- 

 ated in one of the eastern counties of Scotland a few years 

 ago. Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the story is, 

 that it is perfectly true. Some idle fellows of the village near 

 the place where the catastrophe happened, having heard 

 that the roe and deer from the neighbouring woods were 

 in the habit of feeding in some fields of high corn, two of 

 them repaired to the place in the dusk of the evening with 

 a loaded gun, to wait for the arrival of the deer at their 

 nightly feeding-ground. They had waited some time, and 

 the evening shades were making all objects more and more 

 indistinct every moment, when they heard a rustling in the 

 standing corn, at a short distance from them, and looking 



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