DEER -STALKING. 49 



trouble is spared which can contribute to the winter 

 subsistence of the deer, or protect them from poachers. 

 Patches of different kinds of food are sown in the valleys, 

 and left uncut, to which they flock during the severity of 

 winter. The forest has plenty of green summer food, and 

 abundance of long heather, which affords shelter in cold 

 weather, and is greedily eaten in the snow-storm, when 

 hardly any other food can be reached. I shot the subject 

 of the woodcut there about the beginning of October 1840, 

 when the forest was in all its glory, and nothing but 

 sounds of rivalry and defiance were heard in every 

 quarter. The head is not by any means the largest 

 size, but may be taken as a fair average specimen. 

 The fallow-deer's head was from life, one of the finest 

 I ever saw. 



The day I shot the red-deer was perhaps the most 

 unpropitious for stalking which could possibly have been 

 chosen. In the morning, the mist was rolling lazily 

 along the sides of the mountains in dense masses, and 

 it was evident there would be rain before the close 

 of the day. It was enough to damp the heart of the 

 most ardent deer-stalker, but I determined (having 

 little time to spare) to abide by the forester's opinion. 

 His answer was, that " we would just do our best; but 

 if we were unsuccessful to-day, I must e'en wait for 

 to-morrow." With this determination we started for the 

 forest, followed by an under-keeper, with one of Lord 

 Breadalbane's fine deer-hounds, led in a leash. A slight 

 breeze at first sprang up, and partially cleared away the 



