xviii PREFACE. 



on neatly turned ear-pleasing phrases (would that 

 the gift were mine), but solely on the ability to 

 state in plain simple words a number of facts and 

 fancies collected together on a subject in which I 

 know many brother-sportsmen are greatly interested. 

 In "Deerstalking" I tried, to the best of my power, 

 to describe the habits and wily ways of the wild 

 Red Deer of Scotland, and how best to circumvent 

 them ; for these reasons in that book I wrote entirely 

 of stag and stalker, saying but little that gave 

 any idea of the wilds, the morasses, and wastes 

 of moorland and mountain, over which the red deer 

 range in unmolested freedom for ten months of 

 every year. In a word, my " Deerstalking " 

 treated of the inhabitants of a territory without 

 describing the nature of the country in which they 

 lived : for this reason those gentlemen who have 

 read my " Deerstalking " need not be under any 

 apprehension when perusing the following pages that 

 they will be likely to meet with old matter dressed 

 up in a new form for book-making purposes. To 



