168 DEER-STALKING IN THE HIGHLANDS. 



makes a desperate stab at one of them, which the dog endea- 

 voring- to avoid, retreats backward, loses his footing, his hind 

 legs slip over the precipice he is lost ! No, he struggles 

 courageously, his fore feet holding on by the little roughnesses 

 of the bed of the torrent. He rises a little, but slips back 

 again ; he gasps painfully, but summons up all his strength 

 and resolution for one last effort ; hurra ! the gallant dog has 

 recovered his footing, and, not even taking breathing time, 

 rushes at the hart as rash and wrathful as ever ! The 

 stalker is now ready on a mount overlooking the scene ; he 

 levels, but a sudden movement brings the dogs within the 

 scope of the gun. Three times is the aim taken and aban- 

 doned ; a fourth crack ! the ball is in the deer's head ; he 

 drops heavily into the splashing waters. 



Deer, except in embarrassed situations, always run up the 

 wind, their scent thus giving them warning of any concealed 

 enemies in front, and their speed ensuring them against dan- 

 ger from the rear. They prefer lying in the open crevices, 

 where the swells of wind come up occasionally from all quar- 

 ters. There is no animal more shy or solitary by nature than 

 the red deer. He takes the note of alarm from every living 

 thing on the moor all seem to be his sentinels. He is always 

 most timid when he does not see his adversary, for then he 

 suspects an ambush. If, on the contrary, he has him full in 

 view, he is as cool and circumspect as possible ; he then 

 watches him most acutely, endeavors to discover his intention, 

 and takes the best method possible to defeat it. From all 

 this it may be gathered that the qualifications of a deer- 

 stalker are really of a high order. In Mr. Scrope's enumera- 

 tion of them, there is much simple truth beneath the facetious 

 exaggeration. " Your consummate deer-stalker," he says, 

 should not only be able to run like an antelope, and breathe 

 like the trade winds, but to run in a stooping position, at a 

 greyhound pace, with his back parallel to the ground, and his 

 face within an inch of it, for a mile together. He should 

 take a singular pleasure in threading the seams of a bog, or 

 in gliding down a burn like an eel. Strong and pliant in the 



