Memories of Highland Stalkers 



the eagle the curious name "An-t-eun mor abu." An-t- 

 eun mor signifies the "great bird," but the shepherd was 

 at a loss to translate the last word. Some time later Fiona 

 Macleod was able to discover that the word "abu " was the 

 slogan of the Gaels in earliest times. 



The hill stalker admires the eagle. A veteran hillman 

 recently told me how he "was regarding the eagle and was 

 taking notice of the nobility of the bird " when mobbed 

 by grey crows, the eagle continuing on its flight heedless 

 of the repeated attacks of its small adversaries. A curious 

 expression has on more than one occasion been used in 

 conversation with me on the soaring of the King of Birds, the 

 stalker observing that he had seen the eagle "waving " in 

 the sky. 



I shall long remember a pathetic story which a most 

 benevolent looking old stalker unfolded when I met him 

 near his home. Surrounding his house was a small clump 

 of larch and Scots firs in which a kestrel had built her nest 

 and reared her family. The young kestrels left the nest, 

 but how one of the brood met an untimely death had best 

 be narrated in the stalker's own words: "The little haak, 

 I saw him on a tree, so I said to him, ' Come down, man,' 

 and he came down and I killed him with a stick." The 

 story is a humorous one, but has its pathetic side. One 

 can imagine the scene. The small kestrel, tired maybe, 

 and resting after its first flight, the appearance of the enemy, 

 and the regrettable tragedy. 



I remember once when on the hill, a white-bearded 

 stalker asking me whether I could name to him the Seven 

 Sleepers of the Earth. I learnt from him later that he 

 considered without doubt that the wheatear, or stonechacker, 

 as he called it, was one of the seven, and he treated my scep- 

 ticism with something like pity. As a conclusive proof of his 

 statement, he described to me how he had on one occasion 

 discovered a hibernating wheatear at the end of a hole 

 on an exposed moor. His story was evidently true, but 



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