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WILD-FOWL SHOOTING ON THE 

 HIGHLAND LOCHS. 



THE exciting nature of 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 know- 

 ing 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 gets to his game the better his chance, spares no 

 trouble to come to close quarters. He will crawl for a 

 hundred yards like a serpent, although he should be wet 

 through, reckless of his trouble and discomfort if he succeed 

 in his shot. 



I shall now suppose the squire by the loch-side 011 a fine 



