BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



rapidly in her train, though at a considerable disadvantage at 

 first. I saw it was going to be a long affair, got out my 

 glasses, and lay down on the heather, and on one side was my 

 then falconer, Jamie Barr, one of the well-known family of 

 Scotch falconers, — there were once a father and three sons of 

 that name (all falconers by profession), with most acute and 

 trained vision, — and on the other side the proud possessor of the 

 best pair of eyes in all Argyle, if not in the West of Scotland — 

 the so-called " fox-hunter's " son, my gillie, Sandy Kennedy. 

 This man got much employment in seeking sheep lost on the 

 hills and mountains, and long practice had rendered his 

 ancestral eyesight (his father's had been as good) equal to most 

 glasses on the moor. The woodcock, with the falcon below 

 and behind her, did not dare to come down or return — vestigia 

 nulla retrorsum was her motto — and soon the pair of dots were 

 high over the sea loch, there a mile wide, the cock's point being 

 evidently Morven, on the other side of the strait. Soon I 

 called out, " I can see but one." Presently from Barr came — 

 " I canna see them ; " from Kennedy, " I ken 'em fine ! " I 

 hardly believed he could, for my own eyes were then far above 

 the average, and aided by the best of Voigtlaender's field 

 glasses, it was as much as I could do. Presently, methought 

 that the single dot in the sky, which I still discerned, became, 

 instead of fainter, faintly more visible. " They are coming 

 back," quoth Kennedy ; and before long the spot had visibly 

 increased, and the falconer Barr declared that he saw them 

 once more. So did we, and so did all, before long, for the wood- 

 cock, finding herself over the water, and unable to shake off 

 her pursuer, or gain the distant haven of Morven, had no 

 alternative but to seek the shelter of the bracken on our side, 

 from whence she sprang ; so the poor fowl turned tail, and 

 " went for it " in a long slanting descent from an incredible 

 altitude. As they both neared us, they presented the appear- 

 ance of two little balls falling out of the sky right towards us, 

 and quite straight, with the difference (fatal to the poor wood- 

 cock) that " Taillie," that began below her, was now well 



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