FORFARSHIRE. 79 



hill being of the shape of half a sugar loaf cut 

 through lengthways, the path zig-zags along the face, 

 and each time a turn is taken the pony track comes 

 very close to the edge of a precipitous descent, down 

 which if the pony slipped it would be good-bye to 

 all things. 



Many royalties and celebrated men have stalked 

 in this forest, and Her Majesty has passed through 

 it and over the summit of Mount Keen on her 

 way to Balmoral, and at the foot of the ascent 

 " Her Majesty's Well " still remains as a memento 

 of her visit. On the occasion of royal visits it has 

 sometimes been the custom to have just one deer 

 drive, but as a rule all the stags are killed by 

 stalking ; they do not run very large either in body 

 or horn, and the average kill is about fifty, weighing 

 just under 14 stone clean. To judge the Inver- 

 mark stags of the present by the horns of their 

 ancestors which decorate the various rooms of the 

 Lodge, the deer of to-day must have deteriorated 

 very much during the last twenty or thirty years, 



