Roe-Stalking and Roe Heads 205 
“ Aweel, ye see, sir,” he remarked on being questioned as to its behaviour, “ he’s a 
verra guid dowg, but he just says ‘ Wouf! wouf! ’ and ye dinna see him for twa days.” 
Spaniels are very useful roe dogs, and in many shootings no other kinds are used, as 
they are keen, have good noses, and are very plucky. I remember once, at Cambusmore in 
Sutherland, seeing a spaniel bringing a roe from nearly a mile away straight up to me. I 
was posted on some rising ground looking over the big wood-swamp which extends for 
several miles to the south of the Mound. The beaters had gone a long way back and had 
just commenced when I saw from my post, on one of the regular passes, a little white 
spaniel chasing something which I at first thought must be a rabbit, but on coming to the 
open it proved to be a roe. It was interesting to see the movements of the two animals as 
they approached, for they came forward over the open heather. The little deer would let 
the dog come up to within about twelve yards, and would then start off at a rapid pace for 
the next few hundred yards till the pursuer was again close up. As the roe entered a strip 
of more or less open plantation, where I could still watch her, she adopted a zigzag course 
by making rushes off the pass to a distance of 50 yards or more to the right or left, 
apparently trying to throw the dog off the scent, but this was not successful, though she 
certainly increased the distance between herself and her pursuer. 
This swamp by the Mound is a favourite place for roe in the early winter, and during 
this particular day’s shooting Major Laing and I must have seen about thirty altogether, and 
our day’s bag was nine. 
Almost every animal with horns is a good or bad object of the chase as we ourselves 
make him, for the instincts of self-preservation are principally aroused by constant persecu¬ 
tion, and it is generally the case that in proportion as both the approach and the weapons 
of destruction become more scientific, so do the natural cunning and intelligence of the 
quarry also advance. Some beasts are not capable of affording the higher forms of venery, 
but others are, and amongst them is the roe, so where possible let us all give him the fair 
play meted out to the stag. 
The roebuck affords excellent sport with the rifle in certain districts, and where so 
stalked he becomes vigilant and entirely worthy of our consideration in every way. 
Roe-stalking possesses many charms of its own. In the first place, you can enjoy it at a 
season when there is no other shooting going on ; secondly, it takes you out in the early 
morning when all nature is full of life and beauty, and before the heat of the day commences ; 
and thirdly, where the chase of the animal is as systematically conducted as with red deer, 
the nature of the sport is everything that can be desired. I would therefore put forward a 
plea that tenants and owners of part-wood, part-forest lands in Argyle, Inverness, Ross, and 
Aberdeen, should turn their attention to stalking the roe in preference to killing them during 
the usual wood shoots. Many owners do so already, whilst others quite neglect the amuse¬ 
ment which lies at their doors, and will probably continue to do so because it involves 
getting up at two o’clock in the morning. There is no pressing the point that the roe is a 
beast of equal intelligence to the stag, for in nine cases out of ten, if the ground is at all 
open, he is easily circumvented, and nowadays it is only the individual roebucks in certain 
estates where they are regularly stalked that really call upon one to exercise the woodcraft 
of the hunter. Such a wily old fellow lived close to Ross’s house at Beaufort for several 
