THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
ODD DAYS IN VARIOUS FORESTS 
The great charm of shooting in the Outer Islands which lie off the 
coasts of north-west Scotland is its infinite variety. I never yet knew 
the man, however, who was a real sportsman, and who enjoyed shooting 
stags only in the Western Islands for any lengthened period, because 
the time soon comes when he feels that to encompass the destruction 
of an animal that cannot get away, is not quite playing the game. 
On the other hand, when an occasional day at the deer, just as a 
change from other sport, is offered, it is always delightful. So we 
must not class island deer stalking quite in the same category as that 
to be found in a large and open Scotch forest, for from what I have 
seen of it, it is too tame and too easy. This is accounted for by the 
fact that nearly all wild animals are tame or wild, according to the 
size and form of their range within the island or continent they inhabit. 
In Jura they are tamer than in Scotland; in Arran they are tamer than 
in Jura; and in N. Uist and the Lews they are more easy to shoot than 
in either. It is a bad stalker indeed that cannot get a shot at a warrantable 
stag in South Harris, for instance, for in nine days out of ten the wind 
blows steadily from the west, and there are no large carries or punch- 
bowls to break it up and make it curl, whilst the ground where the deer 
are always found is one long series of terraces, covered with large 
boulders, down which the stalker drops to his game without a chance of 
being seen. 
But for wild free sport, stripped of all the trappings and show that go 
to make up the sport offered by the average Highland castle, hired at an 
enormous rent, the Western Islands are second to none. Some of the best 
days of my life have been spent there in hunting seals, snipe, geese, ducks, 
otters and rare sea -fowl, whilst the sea -trout fishing, if you are lucky 
enough to strike the right fortnight in the year, is first-rate. Perhaps 
the best, as well as the most difficult and dangerous sport of all is the 
hunting of the great grey seal, an animal so elusive, and living in such 
wild places, that he is seldom killed. I have made no fewer than six separate 
expeditions to the Western Islands and to the Shetlands to obtain speci- 
mens. These were generally full of interest, excitement, and usually 
ended in failure to obtain the big bulls, but perseverance at last had its 
reward, and I killed three large males and two females, one of which is 
now in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. That, however, 
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