72 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



nearly as surprised as the onlookers when the animal stretched 

 on the surface dead. There was a rush by the two fleetest 

 of our party for the rickety skiff; but long ere it was possible 

 to pull round, I had the mortification to see my prize turn on 

 its back and sink. I directed the rowers to the very spot, 

 but although there were two pairs of as sharp eyes as ever 

 scanned the deep, they could see nothing white at the bottom. 

 On coming into the skiff, I at once perceived that there was 

 no possibility of detecting the object of our search except at 

 the lowest ebb of the tide. 



Our interrupted deer-hunt was again resumed, but there 

 being neither hoof nor horn to delay us in Garmony wood, 

 we had plenty time to be at the seal again by the turn of the 

 tide. After launching the skiff and placing a shepherd to 

 direct our course from the shore, my son, the grieve, and I 

 endeavoured to find the resting-stone, now confounded with 

 several others; but an unfortunate breeze 1 so obscured and 

 hindered the search, that we had gone round and over the 

 white mark three times before my son called out, " I see him." 

 With difficulty backing the boat so as to keep sight of the 

 creature for the few seconds required to cast off my coat and 

 shoes, I plunged into the sea, and at the first dive caught hold 

 of the hind flippers and raised it to the boat-side. Had we 

 been provided with our seal-grappling apparatus (left at Glen- 

 forsa), from the roughness of the water and the strength of 

 the wind, the task would have been both more lengthy and 

 precarious. The seal was a female between 7 and 8 stones 

 weight. 



Late in the season, when the colder days had thinned the 

 Loch-na-Gaul rocks of their floundering visitants, my eldest 

 son, who had been absent all the seal season, and was anxious 



1 When wind ruffles the surface of the sea, a plain tube to fit the face, with 

 plate-glass at the lower end, will greatly help to detect submerged seals. Its 

 length should be four feet and a half, by half a foot diameter, and the glass end 

 heavily weighted, to make it sink. It is, however, a lumbering concern, and 

 would hardly repay the seal-shooter the trouble of its carriage. 



