DEEK-STALKING. 



THIS first of British sports can only be enjoyed by the few 

 Highland proprietors who still maintain their forests, and those 

 to whom their permission is extended. Still, if the many 

 keen sportsmen who are panting to try their rifles upon a 

 gallant stag were thoroughly entered at deer-stalking, they 

 might find less cause to regret their privation than they now 

 imagine. In the first place, no sport is more ruled by the 

 weather ; again, one is so dependent on the skill and tact of 

 the stalker, in whose hands, for some time at least, you must 

 be content to act like a mere puppet. And when the deer 

 are driven, a single false move, or the mistaking of a signal by 

 the hill-men employed, may spoil all. In every other kind of 

 shooting the sportsman ought to trust to his own resources 

 and foresight ; but in deer-stalking, unless he has passed his 

 life in the forest, and is thoroughly acquainted with every 

 corrie, crag, and knoll, he had much better trust to those who 

 are. Without this knowledge, it is impossible for any one to 

 tell how the wind will blow upon a given point : sometimes it 

 may be north on one side of a hollow and south on the other ; 

 and I have seen the mist moving slowly in one direction along 

 the hillside, and half an hour afterwards the very reverse, 

 without any change in the wind. To account for this on the 

 spur of the moment would often puzzle the scientific ; but the 

 unlettered hill-man, who has only been taught by the rough 



