36 AUTUMNS IN ARGYLLSHIRE 



barrelled Henry, fired a snapshot at the second, with- 

 out success, as he galloped off. By the time that 

 I had loaded again he had stopped for a moment 

 at the dyke, either to wait for his " neighbour " or 

 to look before he leaped. It was a long distance, 

 but then he was standing broadside to me, and, 

 putting up the 200 yards' sight, and taking it full 

 I fired again. A sudden start, a turn, and he dis- 

 appeared into the hazel bank behind him. I ran 

 hurriedly on to the end of it to see where he went, 

 but I might have spared myself the trouble, for 

 when the keepers and hounds came up he was 

 lying dead not twenty yards from where I shot 

 at him with a ball through his heart. A noble 

 beast, the largest I had killed or seen killed up to 

 that date. He weighed one hundred and ninety- 

 two pounds clean ; his companion a hundred and 

 sixty-seven. The weight of the deer first killed, 

 which had the better head, was by no means 

 unusual or remarkable ; for these wild fallow-deer 

 have what they like best, a wide range and abun- 

 dance and variety of food, which makes them on 

 an average far heavier than their domestic cousins, 

 and a full-grown buck is seldom less than one 

 hundred and fifty pounds. 1 For the benefit of any 

 one who may wish to institute a comparison, I 

 should say that the weights of the deer are given 



1 My record of 192 Ibs. has been twice beaten, since I killed one 

 of 202 Ibs. in 1891, and another of the great weight of 204 Ibs. fell 

 to Lord Malcolm's rifle in 1897. 



