Field Notes and Stalking Yarns 
excuse. Sixty years ago the stalk was conducted very much as it is to-day, but if a shot 
failed, a deerhound was slipped, and generally brought the uninjured quarry to bay in some 
burn or loch, where he was put an end to with a rifle. And so it was down to a much later 
period. 
A stalker in Black Mount told me of a typical day’s sport in which he took part some 
forty years ago. Fox Maule and Sir Edwin Landseer were the two rifles (they frequently 
stalked in pairs at that time), and on the side of Clashven, Peter Robertson, the head forester, 
-■—E 
THE FIRST BREATH OF WINTER 
brought them within 80 yards of two exceptionally fine stags. Maule fired and missed, as 
did also Sir Edwin as the stags moved away; then, on a signal from Robertson, Peter 
M‘Coll, the gillie, slipped the hounds—the two best ever owned by the late Marquis of 
Breadalbane, and whose portraits are still preserved in the famous picture of “ The Deer Drive,” 
—and away they went in hot pursuit of the deer. An end-on chase now ensued, the line 
taken being due east down the great glen towards Loch Dochart, and at last the stalkers 
were brought to a standstill, being fairly exhausted both in wind and limb. At this 
moment, however, four dark spots like small rocks standing out at the point of a little 
promontory in the lake attracted their attention, and, on drawing nearer, they saw, to their 
