SPOKT AT POLTALLOCH 239 



the season. There is the wild day when we shot the 

 woods on the Moss, Mheall, and Moine-an-Tarbh, 

 when the birds beat the guns so completely at the 

 latter place by twisting back just out of shot or so I 

 try to believe and escaping scatheless into the high 

 covert. There are the snipe that rise from the rushy 

 paddocks as we make our way to the castle wood. 

 There are those splendid high birds that rocket over 

 our heads out of Mheall between the keeper's house 

 and the Scoinish burn, some of which splash into the 

 water and float down the swollen stream, which at 

 this time of year is full of spawning salmon and kelts. 

 In the autumn the trout which it contains are mere 

 fingerlings, hardly worth fishing for except on an off- 

 day, although it is visited by an occasional sea-trout 

 and not a few very small flounders. Then there is 

 that delightful day at Barnakil, when we beat the birch- 

 clad slopes which rise out of the moss near Dun-a- 

 Muich, between the bridge over the canal at Bellanoch, 

 and Carn-baan, haunt beloved of the roe, where 

 I have had many a happy hunt in the old autumns. 

 To-day we see plenty of roe, and mirabile dictu ! 

 three red-deer, which, as I learn with great surprise, 

 have taken up their abode in these woods and in the 

 neighbouring plantation of Ballimore. During all my 

 long stay at Poltalloch I had never before seen a red- 

 deer nearer than at Eriden, on Loch Awe side, now 

 no longer a part of the estate ; but I was destined to 

 encounter these once again, and at closer quarters. 

 We see also two or more large packs of the old black- 

 cocks which haunt the adjacent Moss. Whether any 

 of them found their way into the bag must remain a 

 mystery. If they did, it was strictly against the 



