THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
the evidence of death is purely circumstantial. There is a place on Glen 
Kinglass where there is a steep cliff at the foot of which dead hinds are 
found every winter. These are often devoured by eagles, but no eye-witness 
has seen a hind knocked off the ledge by an eagle, and the character of 
the pass is such that an accident may happen at any time in winter when 
there has been a frost. That eagles do attack hinds, and occasionally even 
adult stags, is, however, a proven fact. At times whole herds of deer have, 
like sheep, been enveloped in snowwreaths, but this is also rare, for deer 
always leave the deep carries in winter where drifts regularly form and 
resort to open, wind-swept hillsides, or flats in the river bottoms. 
Mr Frank Wallace relates (“ Country Life,” September 14, 1912) an 
instance of an eagle attacking a herd of Red deer. He says: 
” A stalker at Glencarron told me he had seen one of these birds 
round up a lot of stags ‘ like a dog with sheep,’ when he dashed into 
the middle of them and drove a young stag of nine stone or ten stone 
down the hill. He struck him about the ribs with his wings, knocked 
him right over, and then, strange to say, flew off. On another occasion 
an eagle singled out a stag and pursued him in the same manner. The 
stag roared with fear, but eventually managed to get into a birch 
wood and brushed off his pursuer.” 
All large stags suffer from the attacks of parasitic flies in July and 
August. The Moose, the Reindeer, the Roe and other deer all have a sepa- 
rate species of fly which attacks them in the hot months in swarms. The 
particular pest of the Red deer is a large bee -like bot-fly known to scientists 
as Cephenomyia rufibarbis. It is a handsome insect, three-quarters of an 
inch long and covered with long silky hairs. The head is black and 
covered with long yellowish hairs, whilst on the lower part of the face 
there is a tuft of reddish -yellow hair, from which the species takes its 
name. F. Brauer, who discovered this insect in 1894, tells us that the female 
deposits her eggs in the nostrils of the deer. She squirts into the nasal 
channels a drop of fluid containing active maggots which adhere to the 
tender skin of the deer’s nose by means of small hooks. With the assistance 
of these hooks, says the German entomologist, 
‘‘These troublesome maggots wriggle themselves onwards until they 
come to lie at the back of the throat, all the while feeding on the mucus 
resulting from the irritation, and increasing in size until they attain the 
length of an inch, and even an inch and a half. They are finally ejected 
from the throat by the coughing and sneezing of their host, when they 
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