24 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



ground. They had waited some time, and the evening shades 

 were making all objects more and more indistinct every moment, 

 when they heard a rustling in the standing corn, at a short 

 distance from them, and looking in the direction they saw 

 some large animal moving. Having no doubt that it was a 

 deer that they saw, the man who. had the gun took his aim, his 

 finger was on the trigger, and his eye along the barrel ; he 

 waited, however, to get a clearer view of the animal, which had 

 ceased moving. At this instant, his companion, who was close 

 to him, saw, to his astonishment, the flash of a gun from the 

 spot where the supposed deer was, and almost before he heard 

 the report his companion fell back dead upon him, and with 

 the same ball he himself received a mortal wound. The horror 

 and astonishment of the author of this unlucky deed can scarcely 

 be imagined when, on running up, he found, instead of a deer, one 

 man lying dead and another Senseless and mortally wounded. 

 Luckily, as it happened, the wounded man lived long enough 

 to declare before witnesses that his death was occasioned solely 

 by accident, and that his companion, at the moment of his 

 being killed, was aiming at the man who killed them. The 

 latter did not long survive the affair. Struck with grief and 

 sorrow at the mistake he had committed, his mind and health 

 gave way, and he died soon afterwards. 



The difference in the colour and kind of hair that a roe's 

 skin is covered with, at different seasons of the year, is astonish- 

 ingly great. From May to October they are covered with 

 bright red-brown hair, and but little of it. In winter their coat 

 is a fine dark mouse-colour, very long and close, but the hair is 

 brittle, and breaks easily in the hand like dried grass. When 

 run with greyhounds, the roebuck at first leaves the dogs far 

 behind, but if pressed and unable to make his usual cover, he 

 appears to become confused and exhausted, his bounds become 

 shorter, and he seems to give up the race. In wood, when 

 driven, they invariably keep as much as they can to the closest 

 portions of the cover, and in going from one part to another 

 follow the line where the trees stand nearest to each other, 

 avoiding the more open parts as long as possible. For some 

 unknown reason, as they do it without any apparent cause, such 

 as being hard hunted, or driven by want of food, the roe some- 

 times take it into their heads to swim across wide pieces of 



