THE ROE DEER 
the beast too low. Curiously enough he headed right through the big 
wood, over the road in the glen, and out across the open fields towards 
the River Beauly. Hugh Ross and I had him in view all the time, and 
reached the river as he crossed the torrent. I made a lucky shot at the 
first attempt, although somewhat blown with the run, and killed the beast 
dead with a bullet in the back of the head. Then the fun began. We had 
to launch an old and leaky boat which we found some distance below, 
and only got to the buck just as he entered the rapids above Aileen Aigus 
Island. It was a stiff pull to get our boat ashore again without being 
drawn into the falls, and I felt afterwards we had done something rather 
foolish. But the buck was a very good one, the best I had killed in 
several seasons at Eskadale. 
Roe will adhere for a lifetime to certain woods if the shelter and feeding 
amenities are suitable. During twelve years I hunted three generations of 
bucks at a certain wood above the castle at Murthly, in Perthshire. I killed 
the first buck, a very large one, but with poor horns, in the first year of 
our tenancy of Murthly; his son I shot six years later, and the grandson I 
hunted unsuccessfully for several years. This was a grand buck, the best 
I ever saw at Murthly, where the heads were small as a rule. At last he 
came out to me, rather a long shot, at the same pass near the arch where I 
had killed both of his predecessors. Perhaps I ought not to have fired, 
but waited for a better opportunity, but as I was using a very hard hitting 
full-choke duck gun and No. 1 shot, I thought the chances of a kill were 
favourable. The buck plunged forward to the shot, and I at once laid on 
my old dog “Jet,” a remarkably fine Roe tracker. There was a good 
sprinkling of blood on the bushes, so I made sure Jet would soon run the 
buck to bay. I ran on expecting to hear her barking at any minute, and 
then found her standing beside the main road to Perth nosing a large 
mark of blood on the turf beside the road. The dog would not leave this, 
and when urged on she rigidly ran the back-spoor, and returned to this 
spot. Evidently the Roe had fallen here, and had never crossed the road, 
nor had it circled back into the wood. 
About a month afterwards I was telling my old friend, Mr Malloch, 
in Perth, about the incident, when he began to laugh, and retired to the 
back of the shop, from which he brought a fine Roe head. 
“ Is this anything like it,” he said, “ I got it from X., a well-known 
Perth poacher, on the day after you lost your Roe.” On being shown the 
head both the Murthly keepers, Keay and Haggart, swore to its being the 
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