THE ROE DEER 
the bucks whenever I wished. The lower woods and Drinahan at Cawdor 
were wonderful Roe grounds at this date, and I have seen as many as six 
big bucks playing in the “rings ’’ at one time. I killed a beauty with horns 
of ten inches here one May morning, and saw an even better one, but I 
got too close to him, and he dashed off and got round a bush before I 
could fire. I think this was the same buck, the best head now at Cawdor, 
with horns nearly eleven inches long, which the late Lord Emlyn killed 
in the following year. 
There are many men who own deer forests, where Roe are plentiful 
in the lower woods, who, if they only knew the pleasure of a fortnight’s 
stalking in July, would go north for that express purpose. The northern 
woods are often at their best in the full flush of summer, and the charm 
of those velvety mornings when the rising, sun lights up the glorious 
colours of the landscape, is often more real than in the biting winds of 
mid October. If there are deer forests above the woods, most of the Roe 
go there in late August, and remain on the hills until the end of September. 
Recently (1911) I saw twelve Roe, including four adult bucks, in one day 
in the small forest of Castle Leod, but none of the bucks had a head worth 
shooting, so we did not stalk them. On the open hill they are easier to 
kill than a Stag, provided you see them first. This is not always simple, 
and many a stalk at a noble royal has been spoilt by overlooking the little 
red Roe that lay in some peat hag near the more desirable quarry. I always 
recall with particular pleasure a hunt I had at Beaufort after a very fine 
roebuck. In 1890 his usual dwelling place was a low birch wood below 
and to the west of Johnny Ross’s house at Kiltarlty. 
At this time all the edge of the moorland to the west of the great Bob- 
lainey wood was broken up into small woods of young fir and birch, 
just of the height and age that Roe like, for they always have a preference 
for young woods that are somewhat dense and of such a height as will 
hide them by day. The hill-sides outside these coverts were clothed with 
patches of heather, juniper bushes and bracken, intersected with glades 
of sweet grass; in fact, the whole area was at that time as perfect a bit 
of ground on which to stalk Roe in the open as any in Scotland. Now, 
alas, it is all grown up, and I am told that it has become too old for 
the little deer, so that there is not one Roe for every ten there were in 
1890-1893. 
I had been given a week’s Roe hunting by Lord Wimborne, the tenant 
of Beaufort, and went to spend it in the little cottage at Kiltarlty, where 
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