26 AUTUMNS IN ARGYLESHIRE 



diving and swimming merrily along, many gulls 

 of various species, some quaint little guillemots, 

 some more cormorants fishing, and, lastly, an 

 eider-duck with two young ones. I see the boat, 

 too, which has come round from Duntroon ; but 

 the boatmen cannot have understood the message 

 sent them in the morning, as they have gone into 

 the landing-place instead of lying out half-way 

 across, in case the deer take the water. 



Some time has now elapsed since the keepers 

 and hounds passed through the field below the 

 plantation on the way to their starting-point, and 

 I expect I shall soon hear the hounds. The pack 

 is at rather a low ebb just now ; but although 

 they would be looked askance at in the Quorn 

 Country, no doubt they will manage to " put some 

 of them out of that," as the old keeper says. 

 There are three foxhounds and three harriers, a 

 small Poltalloch terrier, who will hunt anything, 

 from a red-deer to a rat, and who is very useful 

 in the high bracken beds, and a brown retriever. 

 The gillies, also, will walk through the wood, and 

 some of the best hounds will be kept coupled 

 until a right beast is found. 



There is something crossing the clear place in 

 the wood where so many trees were blown down 

 by the Tay Bridge gale : one, two, three, four 

 all does and fawns. I hope the hounds have not 

 got upon them, for I hear the cry beginning, and 

 they are certainly hunting something ; no, it is all 



