102 FORAYS AMONG SALMON AND DEER. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The Locality. Costume. Waterproofs. Shooting with Punt Gun. 

 Wild- Pigeons. Rabbits. Hernery. Herons and their Habits. 



HAYING as yet confined my accounts chiefly to our 

 campaigns among the salmon and the deer, I purpose 

 in this chapter to give you, by way of variety, a few 

 extracts from my diary for last month on other kinds 

 of sport. 



My first shall be a day's duck-shooting ; not indeed 

 as being remarkable for any great luck, for the sport 

 was rather under than above the average; but because 

 I am not likely, as I had hoped, to have an opportunity 

 of recurring to that particular branch of shooting, and 

 therefore I wish to give what has been my own experi- 

 ence in it. 



Alister, Walter, and myself were the parties engaged ; 

 a gillie and retriever forming a by no means unimpor- 

 tant addition to the party. The scene of operations 

 was a loch or meer, lying in a low marshy locality ; 

 being, even at the time we visited it, of considerable 

 extent, though I am told that it is much larger through 

 the winter and spring, of no great depth, and abound- 

 ing in sedge and water-plants of many different kinds. 

 There were two or three small islands, distinguishable 

 from the surrounding mass of weeds by the group of 

 willows crowded together upon each of them, and af- 

 fording convenient and safe retreats whereon the water- 

 fowl might dry their plumage beneath the sun, or trim 

 their feathers after the performance of their ablutions. 

 Amid the long, dank grass, too, which grew like a tiny 

 prairie over their limited surface, many a coot and 



