230 CREATURES OF PREY 



rocks in a way that showed me it had passed under the 

 stag's belly. 



He was gone ! I had doubly bungled, but worse was 

 to follow. 



More deer were coming up the pass. 'There, take 

 that one/ hissed Donald, cramming in a third cartridge 

 as a noble stag ambled by. It was hardly such an easy 

 shot as the first ; still, it was one which there was no 

 shadow of excuse for missing; nevertheless, missed 

 it was. 



Drenched and dispirited, I descended the hill, con- 

 firmed in my boding that deer-stalking is not all plums 

 an impression which a successful stalk and neatly 

 killed stag in the evening has not entirely dispelled. 



LIV 



During a fortnight spent last year in Knoydart I 

 creatures devoted some inquiry into the survival of 

 of Prey. certain of the rarer British mammals in that 

 wild region. Knoydart is the western moiety of Glen- 

 garry's ancient territory, which was once so finely 

 explained to an English lord by the chief's stalker, 

 Alastair Dubh, as they sat together on the summit 

 of Corrie Glas. ' All that you see,' he said, waving his 

 hands around, 'is Glengarry's'; but, of course, the 

 crowded hill-crests concealed a great deal of the 

 property, so he added, 'and all that you do not see, 

 that is Glengarry's also ! ' There are Macdonalds still 

 in the lonely Knoydart glens, though the soil has 



