WILD -FOWL SHOOTING ON THE HIGHLAND 

 LOCHS 



THE exciting nature of the winter shooting on one of our 

 large Highland lochs, if well frequented by water-fowl, can 

 hardly be conceived by a stranger to the sport. It, in fact, 

 partakes so completely of the nature of deer-stalking, that 

 a man who is an adept at the one would be sure, with a 

 little practice, to be equally so at the other. I should have 

 been astonished to find this amusement so little followed by 

 gentlemen, had I not sometimes witnessed the bungling 

 manner in which they set about it : it is, indeed, as rare to 

 find a gentleman who knows anything of this sport as a 

 rustic who has not a pretty good smattering of it. The 

 reason is obvious. The squire, who may be a tolerable 

 shot, is all eager anxiety until he can show off his right and 

 left upon the devoted fowl ; while the clod, having only his 

 rusty single barrel to depend upon, and knowing that if the 

 birds should rise, his chance is greatly lessened, uses all 

 the brains of which he is master in order to get the sitting 

 shot ; and knowing also, from experience, that the nearer he 



