2s8 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



the current, and could not land him ; indeed, he was very near 

 getting drowned himself, in consequence of his attempts to 

 bring in the seal, who was still struggling. I called the dog 

 away, and the seal immediately sank. The next day I found 

 him dead on the shore of the bay, with (as the man who skinned 

 him expressed himself) "twenty-three pellets of large hail in 

 his craig." 



Another day, in the month of July, when shooting rabbits 

 on the sand-hills, a messenger came from the fishermen at the 

 stake-nets, asking me to come in that direction, as the " muckle 

 sealgh" was swimming aBout, waiting for the fish to be caught 

 in the nets, in order to commence his devastation. 



I accordingly went to them, and having taken my observa- 

 tions of the locality and the most feasible points of attack, I 

 got the men to row me out to the end of the stake-net, where 

 there was a kind of platform of netting, on which I stretched 

 myself, with a bullet in one barrel and a cartridge in the other.] 

 I then directed the men to row the boat away, as if they had 

 left the nets. They had scarcely gone three hundred yards 

 from the place when I saw the seal, which had been floating,' 

 apparently unconcerned, at some distance, swim quietly and 

 fearlessly up to the net. I had made a kind of breastwork or 

 old netting before me, which quite concealed me on the sidej 

 from which he came. He approached the net, and began 

 examining it leisurely and carefully to see if any fish were in 

 it ; sometimes he was under and sometimes above the water. 

 I was much struck by his activity while underneath, where I 

 could most plainly see him, particularly as he twice dived 

 almost below my station, and the water was clear and smooth 

 as glass. 



I could not get a good shot at him for some time ; at last, 

 however, he put up his head at about fifteen or twenty yards' 

 distance from me ; and while he was intent on watching the 

 boat, which was hovering about waiting to see the result of my 

 plan of attack, I fired at him, sending the ball through his brain. 

 He instantly sank without a struggle, and a perfect torrent of 

 blood came up, making the water red for some feet round 

 the spot where he lay stretched out at the bottom. The men 

 immediately rowed up, and taking me into the boat, we 

 managed to bring him up with a boathook to the surface of 



