CH A P T E R IV
F IE LD N O TES A N D S T A L K IN G Y A R N S
It is .generally agreed amongst those o f us who are devoted to sport with the rifle that the
greatest pleasure o f the modern chase is that o f stalking a really wild animal that has been
previously spied in an open, rugged, and mountainous country, with all its attendant incidents
and varying chances o f failure or success. This sport in its highest form is only to be
had with the various wild goats and sheep o f Europe, Asia, and America, and as these
highly sensitive creatures are gifted with powers o f sight and hearing far superior to those
o f the stag, he who means to succeed with them must be prepared for long and toilsome
journeys, and a perseverance in pursuit equal at least to that o f Sherlock Holmes. I f he is
not so armed, let him content himself at home, as he well may do i f privileged to pursue the
stag in any o f our wild Northern forests. “ Oh, but,” says Mr. Superfine Sciolist, “ who
would care to shoot poor beasts mewed up within an enclosure o f seven-strand w ire fencing ? ”
A sneer o f the ignorant, but it is never heard from men who know what deer-stalking really
is in any o f the wide and ample ranges o f Scotland. There the deer have fair play, for no
lasting popularity could ever attach to any sport in this country where such is not practised,
and sometimes happy is the man who can point to even one dead animal as the result o f a
week’s hard stalking. He need not be ashamed o f his work, however skilled he may be in
the stalker’s art. On the other hand, a well-known Russian sportsman with whom I was
dining recently had just come from the North, where he had rented one o f those small sheep-
pen forests in Inverness-shire, and he was immensely disgusted with the ease and luxury o f
sport “ as made in Scotland,” accustomed as he was to the pursuit o f big game, with its
comparatively few chances. “ A h ! ” said he, with scornful emphasis, “ it is absurd ; it is
slaughter. Why, you get three shots every day ! ”
I think it says a good deal for the genuineness and healthy tone o f Scotch deerstalking
that no professionalism has, or ever can, pervade the sport. I f we look into the
annals o f the past, we shall see how, instead o f its degenerating or becoming less manly, it is
conducted to-day on infinitely more sportsmanlike lines than at any previous period.
Three hundred years ago great drives were the fashion ; the animals, confined within a small
space, were brought within easy reach and practically butchered at a short range, a form of
amusement for which even the poverty o f the weapons o f that day was hardly a sufficient