12 
FOREST AND STREAM 
February, 1919 
»f the craters when the volcano was 
active aeons ago; and^from their feet 
the barren slopes down to the river, 
looking quite even and smooth, until you 
come to walk it. Then you find that it 
runs in gradual undulations, with oc- 
•asional “ corries ” 
or fissures, down, 
which streamlets 
drain into the main 
river below. 
The wide brown 
expanse is abso- 
lutely bare. There 
is not a tree to be 
seen anywhere. 
Not even a bush. 
No cover of any 
sort except in the 
corries, where the 
banks on each side 
of them give some 
shelter from the 
furious winds that 
sw'eep over the 
region and enable 
the long heather to 
grow, with a rare 
stunted alder or 
willow. A more 
difficult deer-stalk- 
ing country, or one 
more calculated to 
try the mettle of a 
hunter, it is impos- 
sible to conceive. 
When the deer come down from the up- 
lands they hide in the corries by day. 
There they get all the feed they want, 
and all the shelter they need. You can’t 
see them, unless they come up to the 
corrie edges, to feed or sun themselves. 
But they can see you miles away over 
the moor, or wind you with their mar- 
vellous noses, as you follow the corries 
up or down. Hence deer-stalking in West 
Mayo is the real thing, no nonsense or 
artificiality about it. You must work 
and use your wits; and you must work 
hard if success is to reward you. 
These barrens are very wet; but the 
walking is sound except over “tussocks,” 
i. e., places where the turf is cracked 
and fissured in all directions to a depth 
of two or three feet, and where you must 
step from tussock to tussock with a scant 
foothold on each. There are occasional 
bog-holes, or “shakes” or “muskegs.” 
But you can see them and keep out of 
them, more or less. The walking is in- 
teresting, too, as on all these Irish bogs. 
You have a wide view of the far-flung 
barren to the East, in every shade of 
brown and purple; merging into grey and 
blue in the far distance. To the South, 
Nephin More, the highest mountain in 
Mayo, and his brother, Nephin Beg, stand 
out prominently. There are lesser hills, 
too, with many names, between them 
and Sleive Cor. And there are scores 
of lakes, little and big; their largest 
Lough Conn, the greatest of the Mayo 
lakes, 12 or 15 miles away. 
The famous mountain Croagh Patrick 
is visible to the South, from the upper 
crest of Sleive Cor, about 20 miles off. 
And Blacksod Bay, a vast Fjord running 
in from the Atlantic, would be about the 
same distance to the West. With this 
sketch of the lie of the land, we proceed 
to stalking the Irish red deer. 
■' i 
H aving forded the river Me Andrew 
and I usually made for a knoll on 
the moor, about a mile due west of 
the cottage. Thence we spied out the 
land with our glasses, to locate a deer 
if possible. The first day we spied a 
hind, on the edge of a corrie to the 
North; so we came back and made a long 
swing to the right, until we struck the 
corrie about 1% miles from where we 
thought she was. I should explain that 
I never shoot hinds or does, either at 
home or abroad, but it is often useful 
to stalk a hind, failing to spot a stag, 
as he may be somewhere near her. 
We struck the corrie and followed up 
its bed until we saw the hind again with 
a second hind and a fawn, about 300 
yards away. We crawled on, until we 
could get no further, for she spied us as 
we crossed a bend of the stream. Up 
went, her head with its long ears ! We 
stopped motionless and she looked at us. 
We remained motionless, so as not to 
stampede them, on the chance of a stag 
being near them. They were a pretty 
sight, on the edge of a little cliff with 
the stream below. Yellow bracken and 
green rushes, and brown moor and pur- 
ple heather, made a charming setting, 
with the blue sky overhead, for the grace- 
ful bodies and bright red-orange coats 
of the dear, as the sun shone full upon 
them. They were very suspicious how- 
ever, and after looking at us for some 
minutes and sniffing the air to get our 
wind, they trotted up the corrie and dis- 
appeared. We followed up the stream 
and presently a hind appeared, and then 
another, on the moor to our left, coming 
towards us, and then just behind them, 
a great stag came majestically into view. 
He was a superb creature. He looked 
quite black with the sun behind him and 
carried a great head with conscious pride. 
The sun was right in my eyes. All I 
could distinguish was the dark massive 
frame with the branching antlers above 
it. I tried to count his points, but failed. 
There was a shimmering halo all about 
him. McAndrew touched my arm and 
whispered: “That’s the Black Stag!” It 
was an exciting 
moment. 
I should explain 
that round the turf 
fire at the cottage, 
in the evenings, 
when discussing 
our campaign over 
our pipes, McAn- 
drew had told me 
that there were two 
stags on Altna- 
brocky immeasura- 
bly beyond the rest 
in size and beauty. 
One he called the 
Red Stag and the 
other the Black 
Stag. They both 
carried good heads 
and w'ere both ex- 
tremely shy; but 
the Black Stag was 
amazingly so, and 
only appeared at 
long and rare in- 
tervals. H e h a d 
been in the moun- 
tains for years, but 
condescend- 
ed to show himself very seldom. And 
as my special luck would have it, here he 
was, within range more or less, on our 
first day out! The deer were some way 
off; farther than I would care to shoot 
at in ordinary circumstances. They were 
moving round our left and must wind us 
immediately. But it was the “Black 
Stag.” I might never see him again! I 
chanced the sun and the distance, tried 
a lon^ shot and missed! The big stag 
plunged into the corrie and disappeared 
with his company. When I saw him 
again a few minutes later he was a mile 
away making for the hills. 
N ext day we went South tow'ards 
Nephin Beg, traveling down wind 
so as to come back along the foot- 
hills with the wind in our faces. We 
came to the corrie where the badgers 
live and give their name to the district; 
when round the side of a mound opposite 
I saw a stag’s antlers. But he had 
winded us and was moving away. We 
crossed to where I had seen him and 
tracked him to another ravine farther 
on. There he turned up its bed to the 
right up-wind. This was all right; so 
we ate our biscuits and had a smoke. 
We then worked up the corrie to close 
where it ended near the last of the 
Sleive Cor lakes; turned north and 
walked along the face of the hill to a 
corrie issuing from the second, or middle 
lake. We spied up and down, as well as 
we could, saw nothing and pushed on. 
We came to another corrie. McAndrew 
was above me. I was negotiating a 
stretch of tussocks when he shouted to 
me to look across the ravine. There was 
our stag moving away on the other side 
of it to the left. I shot the bolt of my 
Our headquarters, Altnabrocky Cottage in County Mayo, Ireland 
