74 AMID THE HIGH HILLS 
that the dead stag had been pierced through the 
heart by his conqueror. 
The stag with the best horns is generally not 
the best fighter and is frequently driven out by 
a switch-horn or " caberslach," whose long skewer- 
like antlers are the most effective horns for 
fighting. The best fighter of all is, however, 
the hummel — a stag which has no horns at all, 
and which is in consequence a very heavy beast. 
It is astonishing how a stag will sometimes 
acknowledge himself beaten without any fight at 
all. I remember when stalking at Fealar that I 
had been trying without success for nearly two 
hours to get a shot at a big black stag which was 
in pursuit of a large number of hinds and was 
constantly on the move, skirmishing with smaller 
stags and driving them away. Suddenly we 
heard the sound of great roaring and saw coming 
from the direction of Mar Forest a huge red stag 
which evidently had for its objective the hinds who 
were in charge of the black stag. The newcomer 
kept running for a short distance and then stopped 
to roar and gi'unt. We thought that by running 
hard we might reach a point near enough to get 
a shot at him. We accordingly ran as fast as we 
could in order to try to cut him off, but in vain. 
