SPORT AT POLTALLOCH 243 



well that we secured five of their number. As they 

 were making for the top of the wood, which is planted 

 on the side of a steep hill, they were quite satisfactory 

 rocketers as they crossed the road. I must confess 

 that I found it rather hard work walking through the 

 wood in line with the others afterwards, and had to 

 use my hands as well as my feet to help me over the 

 steep hummocks and over the heathery boulders which 

 strew the bottom of the covert, and that most of the 

 few woodcocks that I saw were too quick for me, 

 occupied as I was in looking to my footsteps. I was 

 rewarded, however, for all my toil, when three splendid 

 red-deer, one a royal, if not an imperial, stag, blundered 

 out of the thick fir- wood into an open glade and trotted 

 just in front of me, so near that I might easily have 

 secured the splendid head by planting a charge of 

 number five shot just behind the shoulder. Such 

 things are done in Germany, where the horns are the 

 only part of the stag valued ; but I am thankful to 

 say that I know of no forest in Scotland where the 

 coveted royal which has eluded the eager pursuit of 

 the stalker during the season has been slaughtered 

 for his head in the winter by some rifle when in 

 nominal pursuit of the hinds. It is creditable that 

 this should be the case when we reflect how difficult 

 it is in some forests to dispose of all the venison killed, 

 even when a most liberal allowance of haunches has 

 been dumped upon friends and acquaintances. 



On off-days the snipe by the Old River, a marsh 

 left by the shifting course of the Add, or on the links 

 by the seashore, or in the rushy fields between them 

 and the Moss, afford an excuse for a ramble, with 

 always the possibility of a duck or widgeon possibly 



