THE SOUND OF MULL. 471 



a roe, tried several times to take up the hound. About three 

 o'clock he heard him puzzling over some thick gorse, and 

 when trying to couple him, a fox hobbled out in so distressed 

 a state that he again laid on the hound, who ran into and 

 worried him, after another half-mile's chase. The fox a 

 large dog, and in excellent condition had lost two toes from 

 the fore -foot by a trap, otherwise a single hound could never 

 have run him down in six hours. This hound was by no 

 means equal to the two former ones, either in nose or powers 

 of endurance. 



In the winter of 1854 we killed twenty-four roes at Black- 

 hall in Aberdeenshire, nineteen falling to rny own gun. Of 

 the whole nineteen, only five were killed to beaters, thirteen 

 were hunted out by dogs, and one I killed after stalking it by 

 its tracks in snow. The winter before, I traced another fine 

 buck in the snow, and shot him. But snow-stalking is tedious 

 and uncertain at best, and there are few days in a whole winter 

 when it can be followed with any chance of success. It is 

 useless to try when the snow is ever so slightly crisped with 

 frost. They are sure to hear you before you see them. After 

 snow has lain a day or two, even should there be no frost, the 

 roe-tracks become so numerous and confused that a man, even 

 with the eye of an Indian, would generally find himself fol- 

 lowing a circle, or lost in a labyrinth of roe-marks. The only 

 time, therefore, for a snow-stalk, is directly after a fall of 

 snow. A pure white dress and cap are indispensable. 



The fox is even more shy of a driving hunt than red-deer, 

 and is apt to take the guns unawares by cantering up to the 

 passes before he is expected. Upon the most distant sound 

 of the hue and cry, if there is a wily one in any part of the 

 wood, he at once begins to retreat after his own peculiarly 

 subtle and methodical style. On the morning of one of the 

 roe-drives above mentioned, I had directed a strong company 

 of beaters to the far end of our largest wood, and could 

 barely distinguish the first faint shouts, when I noticed a 



