Captain fboratfo Iflos0 257 



party were at dinner, and were brought into the dining- 

 room. He sent me the 20, and said in his note that 

 ' it was the most expensive cntrte ever handed to him.' " 



But a far more remarkable feat was the outcome of 

 a wager of 100 with Mr. George Foljambe. " I 

 undertook," says Captain Ross, " to shoot ten brace 

 of swallows with a pistol and single ball in one day. 

 An immense number of swallows built their nests all 

 round the towers of the Rossie Castle, and I shot the 

 match there. ' The Squire ' was staying with me at the 

 time and saw the match shot. I shot well, as the shots 

 were pretty long ones, the towers being three stories 

 high and a half-sunk story. I caught the birds as they 

 were hovering, with wings extended and pretty stationary, 

 before going into their nests. I finished the match 

 before breakfast." 



As a pistol-shot Captain Ross had only one equal 

 amongst his contemporaries, and that was Captain Rees 

 Howell Gronow, whose racy " Recollections " have made 

 him famous. These two were without doubt the best 

 pistol-shots in the world. Neither of them was ever 

 beaten in a match, but though many attempts were 

 made to bring them together in competition, Gronow 

 would never consent. He told Ross, with whom he 

 was on intimate terms of friendship, that since his 

 two duels in Paris, in each of which he killed his man, 

 he could not bear the sight of a pistol. 



In reference to one of those duels there is a dramatic 

 story told. Gronow had been forced into a duel by an 

 insolent Frenchman. They met in the Bois de Boulogne. 

 Just before taking their places to fire, the Frenchman^ 



.7 



