56 ANIMAL PAINTERS 



m'scences of Life in the Hio^h lands, thus records 

 the incident of their meeting in Glenfishie Forest : — 



We soon ensconced ourselves behind a heathery knoll 

 within a few yards of our poacher, to watch his proceedings 

 before we finally pounced upon him. He was a little, 

 strongly-built man, very like a pocket Hercules, or " Puck " 

 in the " Midsummer Night's Dream." He was busily em- 

 ployed gralloching his deer. This he did with great quickness 

 and dexterity, not omitting to wash the tallow and other 

 treasures carefully in the burn and deposit them on the stone 

 beside the deer. He next let the head hang over so as to 

 display the horns, and then squatting down on a stone 

 opposite took out of his pocket what I thought would be 

 his pipe or whisky flask : but it was a sketch book ! 



Seeing that we had mistaken our man, I came out into 

 the open and then found myself face to face with my friend 

 of many years to come — Landseer. 



From this time forward Landseer was a con- 

 stant visitor to Chillingham Castle, where he found 

 congenial subjects for his brush in the famous wild 

 white cattle. As soon as he arrived there on his 

 first visit he devoted himself to the study of the 

 cattle as keenly as he had done a few weeks before 

 to that of the deer, " observing them with his 

 glass for days from some hiding place and noting 

 minutely their ways and characteristics." 



It was decided to kill a bull for his closer in- 

 spection, and the means adopted to "cutout" the 

 selected beast from the herd resulted in a serious 

 mishap. A keeper was posted in ambush to shut 

 the bull into the lower park when the herd returned 



