CHAP, xxxiv.] DEER-HOUNDS. 259 



comparatively plentiful in all the Highland districts, owing to 

 the increased extent of the preserved forests and the trouble 

 taken by different proprietors and renters of mountain shootings, 

 who have collected and bred this noble race of dogs, regardless 

 of expense and difficulties. The prices given for a well bred 

 and tried dog of this kind are so large, that it repays the cost ami 

 trouble of rearing him. Fifty guineas is not an unusual price 

 for a first-rate dog, while from twenty to thirty are frequently 

 given for a tolerable one. 



My object, however, in commencing this Chapter was not to 

 enter into a disquisition concerning greyhounds, but to describe 

 some of their performances, which have fallen under iny own 

 observation, and which I noted down at the time, 



September 22nd, 18 . Started this morning at daybreak 

 with Donald and Malcolm Mohr, as he is called (Anglice, Mal- 

 colm the Great, or big Malcolm), who had brought his two 

 deer-hounds, Bran and Oscar, to show me l>ow they could kill a 

 stag. Malcolm himself is as fine a looking " lad " (of thirty-five 

 years old, however) as ever stepped on the heather ; a head and 

 shoulders taller than Donald, who, for this reason, and I believe 

 for no other, affects to treat his capabilities as a deer-stalker with 

 considerable contempt, always ending any description of a sport- 

 ing feat of Malcolm's with the qualification, ' 'Twos no that bad 

 for so long-legged a chiel as you." 



The dogs were perfect. Bran, an immense but beautifully 

 made dog, of a light colour, with black eyes and muzzle ; his 

 ears of a dark brown, soft and silky as a lady's hand, the rest of 

 his coat being wiry and harsh, though not exactly rough and 

 nhaggy like his comrade Oscar, who was long-haired and of a 

 darker brindle colour, with sharp long muzzle, but the same soft 

 cars as Bran, which, by-the-by, is a distinctive mark of hi<jh 

 breeding in these dogs. Malcolm Mohr and I took no guns 

 with us ; but Donald, as usual, had his old " dooblr barrel," as 

 he calls it, an ancient Hint-and-steel affair ; the barrels by Man- 

 ton, and therefore excellent when you could get them off, which 

 the stock and locks, apparently the workmanship of a Highland 

 carpenter and blacksmith, generally prevented me from doing, 

 the triggers being inaccessible to any ordinary fore-finger, and 

 the stock about half the length of any other giin-btoek that ever 



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