CHILL OCTOBER 215 



this morning, as we get two glossy old blackcocks, 

 a pigeon, and a woodcock probably one bred on 

 the ground, as the flights from abroad do not 

 begin to arrive until about the full moon on the 

 10th at earliest. Three roe are seen, one a buck 

 with a pretty head ; but although we should like 

 to add another specimen to the bag, we neither 

 of us care to shoot at them with a smooth-bore 



A few steps onwards bring us, past a small 

 cluster of old " black houses," to the foot-bridge 

 across the Add, near Dalnahassaig. As we cross 

 it, the river looks deceptively high, but there is 

 a deadness of the current and an oily smooth- 

 ness out of the wind which reveal to the practised 

 eye that the tide is in. A red fish a soldier 

 greets us with a splash as we pass ; but we pay 

 him no attention, as we are not having what we 

 call a "Robinson Crusoe day" to-day. Some- 

 times I have visited these happy hunting-grounds 

 with a gun, a rod, and a pea-rifle, so as to be 

 ready to stalk a blackcock on the peat stalks 

 with the latter weapon, or to get a duck, snipe, 

 or plover, or grouse on the edge of the moor in 

 the intervals of flogging the pools for salmon and 

 sea-trout; and my boys used to call such days 

 " Robinson Crusoe days," from my fancied resem- 

 blance to the old pictures of the solitary islander 

 parading his little kingdom with his fine assort- 

 ment of weapons. 



But what are those little brownish birds run- 



