Captain Iboratio IRoss 255 



killed 75 deer in Suthcrlandshirc. These are my three 

 best seasons." 



How deadly a shot Captain Ross was with a sporting 

 rifle may be gathered from this one instance. I'urdey, 

 the famous gunmaker, had just finished a double 

 rifle for Lord Macdonald when Ross called at his shop. 

 Purdey asked the Captain to try the rifle. He did so. 

 The mark was a chalk disk exactly the size of a rifle- 

 patch, the distance 100 yards. Ross fired six double 

 shots and broke eleven disks. 



Yet, confident as he was of his own powers as a rifle- 

 shot, Horatio Ross, like a true sportsman, would never 

 risk a shot at a deer unless he were certain of killing it. 

 " I cannot," he writes, " accuse myself of having often 

 wounded deer, because I make it a rule never to fire 

 at deer beyond the range of 150 yards, and then only 

 if I had a good steady view of the deer." And again : 

 " However well men may shoot at a small mark on 

 a target at a long distance, I venture to implore them 

 to think of the misery and pain they may cause to poor 

 deer for years by reckless shooting ; and I beseech them 

 to keep in mind, when getting near the end of their 

 stalk, the words one hundred and fifty yards." 



Of Captain Ross's wonderful feats as a target-shot 

 I have written elsewhere in these pages. Suffice it to 

 say here that he was eleven times captain of the 

 Scottish team for the Elcho Shield, and shot in the 

 eight himself four times, on two occasions, in 1862 

 and 1 863, making the highest score for Scotland, though 

 he had then passed his sixtieth year. Once he was 

 second of the whole sixteen English and Scotch. He 



