136 “SNAKES AND PUDDOCK-STOOLS.” [PART 1. 
fishing in general as an ignoble and degrading 
sport rather than otherwise. Shooting was his 
delight, when engaged about which I never saw a 
day too long, or a hill too high or “coarse” for him, 
though upwards of sixty seasons had passed over 
his head. It was a favourite boast of his that he 
had been forty-three years a fox-hunter, and never 
had missed a fair shot at a fox at forty yards,— 
“Forrty yarrds, Sirr—yees.” 
Besides Eels we used, whenever we could get 
them, to indulge in mushrooms, which are also 
objects of suspicion to Highlanders, and gene- 
rally considered by them utterly unfit for food. 
One of our party too was curious in the matter of 
funguses, and, not confining himself to the ortho- 
dox mushroom, used to bring in all kinds of 
“agarics and fungi” of as questionable appear- 
ance as those described in Shelley's Sensitive 
plant, all of which he insisted on having dressed, 
and made a point of doing full justice to. I was 
once induced (in an evil hour) to make an essay 
on a puff-ball, being assured that it would be quite 
as good as the common mushroom. Anything so 
nasty I never tasted. From its appearance and 
consistency I could well have imagined it to be 
broiled slug, and its taste was, to my palate, very 
