364 IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 



and I can scan him (for it is a buck) carefully. His 

 horns are all right, and of fair size. 



On the ridge he pauses one fatal moment to 

 look back. Bang ! The hills re-echo the report, 

 and the buck lies kicking. I hurry towards him 

 as soon as I have reloaded. Poor fellow ! but 

 euthanasia soon follows. As my skean dhu finds 

 the fatal spot between skull and vertebra, the soft 

 eyes glaze at once. 



The other day I was reading an article by 

 Mr. Andrew Lang, in which he says that as the 

 sportsman grows older "he ceases to be sangui- 

 nary." If this is true I never can have been 

 young, for, with the exception of actually noxious 

 and dangerous animals, I think I never killed one 

 without some slight feeling of regret. A cock 

 pheasant, for instance. There he lies, a crumpled 

 mass of feathers, that a minute ago was a beautiful 

 and harmless creature, enjoying his simple life. 



What right had I to take it ? What "Mark," 



and the gun is at the shoulder again, for the sym- 

 pathy, alas ! only comes after the shot. A hunted 

 fox again. Well, there I think I can honestly 

 say I never tallied one in my life when another 

 man was carrying the horn. Poor beast, he has 

 given me a capital twenty, thirty, or forty minutes ; 

 let those whose business it is view him for 

 themselves, if they can't kill him without. If I 

 were hunting hounds, my feelings for them would 



