18 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



direction of the rifles, slowly and cautiously take their doomed 

 way. There is often great difficulty in driving them, as they 

 are always obliged to go with the wind, which their natural 

 instinct of self-preservation makes them very unwilling to do ; 

 and if they possibly can, they always face it. When the herd 

 come within distance of the rifles, great mischief often ensues ; 

 the nervous and indifferent shot firing into the centre of the 

 living mass, while even the experienced deer-stalker, in sin- 

 gling out the stag-royal, may sometimes wound a couple of 

 hinds beyond him. 



So much for driving on grand occasions, which gives the 

 shooter a tolerably snug sinecure until the game comes up to 

 his hand. But when it is practised in a small way, there is 

 no sport which more calls into play his pluck and endurance of 

 fatigue. He first climbs to the ridge of the hill, where he is at 

 once seen by the hawk-eyed driver who has taken his station 

 near the foot or on the opposite brow, and has marked with his 

 glass every herd at feed or rest on the face below. As soon as 

 he has selected one, he attempts to drive it up the hill, towards 

 the sportsman, either by hallooing or showing himself ; at the 

 same time giving warning by the manner of his halloo which way 

 they are likely to take. The sportsman must be thoroughly 

 acquainted with all the passes, or have some person with him 

 who is ; and, running from one " snib " to another, in obedience 

 to the signal below, catch sight of the horns of the herd, as 

 with serpentine ascent they wind their wary way. From the 

 zigzag manner in which they often come up, it is very difficult 

 to make sure which pass will be the favoured one, and I have 

 been within a few hundred yards of the antlers when the pro- 

 longed shout from below has warned me that I had an almost 

 perpendicular shoulder of the hill to breast at my utmost 

 speed before I could hope to obtain the much-desired shot. If 

 the wind is at all high, so determined are the deer to face it, 

 that, unless there are a great number of drivers, one herd after 

 another may take the wrong direction; but, if the day is 



