296 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



but our driver turned round, and with great animation pointed 

 out the bush where the wounded partridge lay. The little 

 assassin was beating a retreat, but left ample proof of his guilt 

 in a shower of stolen feathers which streamed from him as he 

 flew. He would be certain to return to his prey, and might 

 easily have been trapped. No greater proof of the dire havoc 

 hawks commit among game can be adduced, than the fact 

 that they refuse everything they don't hunt down themselves ; 

 while, on the contrary, no birds are easier trapped, even at a 

 stale bait, than kites and buzzards. 



Once, and only once, I noticed a hen-harrier devouring 

 what she had no hand, or rather foot, in killing. On Lennie 

 Moor I wounded a grouse, and marked the spot where it 

 towered and fell. The scent was bad, and my dogs could not 

 find it. Two days after I was ranging the same ground, and 

 a female hen-harrier rose out of the heather. She was giving 

 the last polishing to the bones of my grouse. It is probable 

 she might have noticed the bird fall, as hawks are very quick 

 in detecting disabled prey. I have seen them single out the 

 wounded bird from a pack, and stick to it closely. Upon one 

 occasion a hawk made a desperate charge at a grouse I had 

 actually knocked down, neglecting several others which rose 

 at the same moment. I gave him an uncomfortable salute 

 with my second barrel. 



Next day was the last of our Highland trip, and my boy 

 begged hard to be allowed to dedicate a couple of hours to the 

 pike at Kilchurn. 1 He had caught his bait before breakfast, 

 and borrowed a pike-tackle, the waiter's old rod, and a small 

 rickety reel with ten yards of very rotten line. We walked 

 down to the castle of Kilchurn, which is surrounded by a 

 shallow reach of water, a sort of enclosed bay from Loch Awe, 

 full of large pike. A boat is a great advantage here, where 



1 The three best places on the loch for pike are Kilchurn, at the head ; Port 

 and Sherry Bay, half-way down, where the pike generally run large ; and, best 

 of all, the "Foord" at the foot. 



