388 UNCOUTH FIREARMS. 



A SHORT ACCOUNT OF COUL. 



[Obligingly communicated by SIR GEORGE STUART MACKENZIE, Bart, 

 the Proprietor.] 



THERE are few country residences so favourably situated 

 for sport as Coul. Between breakfast and dinner time 

 you may have amusement with every kind of game, except 

 ptarmigan, which are too remote. I have myself, says 

 the proprietor, brought in a couple of salmon, and a stag 

 has been shot, both within an hour after leaving the 

 house. The increase in the numbers of red and roe deer 

 has been remarkable. Twenty years ago, it was a rare 

 thing to meet with either. It was supposed that the in- 

 troduction of sheep had driven them away ; but though 

 this may have been one great cause, it was neither the 

 sheep, nor the shepherds, nor their dogs, that occasioned 

 the extreme scarcity, but the great extent to which 

 poaching was carried every Highlander having formerly 

 been in possession of a gun of some sort or another. At 

 the residence of Coul there are still preserved some pieces 

 of strange and uncouth appearance, which have at various 

 times been employed on this service. Many of them have 

 Spanish barrels, perhaps relics of the Armada ; some are 

 of French construction ; and many a gun that had made 

 a noise during the civil wars and rebellions was turned 

 against the stately rangers of the mountains. Nay, in 



