1 6 MEMOIR. 



and opportunities of study of wild animal life. I have heard him 

 dwell especially on pleasant recollections of Eosehall of Aldourie 

 a charming place of the Tytler family on Loch Ness, and some 

 others beyond the Moray Firth. But in due time he discovered the 

 region best suited to his taste and happiness in the "Laigh" of 

 Moray, a fertile and well-cultivated country, with dry soil and 

 bright and bracing climate, with wide views of sea and mountain, 

 within easy distance of mountain sport, in the midst of the game 

 and wild animals of a low country, and with the coast indented 

 by bays of the sea and studded with frequent fresh-water lakes, the 

 haunt of all the common wildfowl and of many of the rarer sorts. 

 It was in that country, for the most part, that St John spent the 

 last ten years of his active life, before he was struck by his fatal 

 malady. 



I became acquainted with Charles St John in my autumn 

 vacation of 1844, while I was Sheriff of Moray. He was then 

 living at Invererne, below Torres, and I used to shoot sometimes on 

 an adjoining property. We had some common friends, and messages 

 of civility had passed between us, but we had not yet met ; when 

 one day in October I was shooting down the river side, and the 

 islands in the Findhorn, making out a bag of partridges laboriously. 

 It was a windy day, and the birds going off wild spoilt my shooting, 

 which is at best uncertain. While I was on the island, two birds 

 had gone away wounded into a large turnip-field across the river. 

 I waded the river after them, and was vainly endeavouring to 

 recover them with my pointers, when a man pushed through the 

 hedge from the Invererne side, followed by a dog making straight 

 for me. There was no mistaking the gentleman a sportsman all 

 over, though without any " getting up " for sport, and without a 

 gun. I waited for him, and on coming up he said he had seen my 

 birds pitch, and offered to find them for me if I would take up my 

 dogs. When my pointers were coupled, he called " Grip," and his 

 companion, a large poodle with a Mephistopheles expression, began 

 travelling across and across the drills, till suddenly he struck the 

 scent, and then with a series of curious jumps on all fours, and 

 pauses between, to listen for the moving of the bird, he made quick 



