is no reflection upon their skill. It is seldom that you fire at a less distance than a hundred yards, and this is as near as you would wish to get. The usual range will be between this and two hundred yards, beyond which, as a general rule, I never think it prudent to fire, lest I should hit the wrong animal, though deer may be killed at a much greater distance. Now the sportsman who has been accustomed to shot guns, is apt to fire with the same sort of aim that he takes at a grouse or any other common game; thus he invariably fires behind the quarry; for he does not consider that the ball, having three, four, or perhaps five times the distance to travel that his shot has, will not arrive at its destination nearly so soon; consequently, in a cross shot he must keep his rifle more in advance. The exact degree, as he well knows, will depend upon the pace and remoteness of the object. Deer go much faster than they appear to do, and their pace is not uniform, like the flying of a bird; but they pitch in running, and this pitch must be calculated upon."

Although the red deer has not

The dreadful plunge of the concealed tiger;

nor charges he like the maimed lion, or elephant, or buffalo at bay he possesses qualities which render his death as difficult to achieve as that of any of the foregoing quadrupeds; since to the gracefulness of an antelope, he unites the agility of a chamois- the eye of a lynx-the nose of a vulture-the ear of a hare-the vigilance of a bustard—the cunning of a fox-he can swim like

a sea-fowl-in speed he will outstrip the racehorse and in the height and length of his leap

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none but himself can be his parallel!” The anxiety attending this sport must be as intense as the pursuit is laborious. After climbing for hours the mountain-side, with the torrent thundering down the granite crags above him, and fearful chasms yawning beneath him,* the stalker, with his glass, at length descries in some remote valley, a herd too distant for the naked eye. He now descends into the tremendous glen beneath, fords the stream, wades the morass, and by a circuitous route threads the most intricate ravines to avoid giving the deer the wind. Having arrived near the brow of the hill, on the other side of which he believes them to be, he approaches on hands and knees, or rather vermicularly, and his attendant, with a spare rifle, does the same. A moment of painful suspense ensues. He may be within shot of the herd, or they may be many miles distant, for he has not had a glimpse of them since he first discovered them an hour ago. His videttes on the distant hills have hitherto telegraphed no signal of his proximity to deer; but now a white handkerchief is raised, the meaning of which cannot be mistaken; with redoubled caution he crawls breathlessly along till the antlers appear; another moment and he has a view of the herd; they are within distance. He selects a hart with well-tipt, wide-spreading horns. Still on the ground, and resting his rifle on the

* An idea of the height and steepness of some of the forest-mountains may be formed by the fact, that from a dozen to twenty deer are sometimes destroyed at once by the fall of an avalanche, in winter.

heather, he takes a cool aim. His victim-shot through the heart-leaps in the air and dies. The rest of the herd bound away; a ball from another barrel follows, the "smack" is distinctly heard, and the glass tells that another noble hart must fall, for the herd have paused, and the hinds are licking his wound. They again seek safety in flight, but their companion cannot keep pace with them. He has changed his course; the dogs are slipped and put upon the scent, and are out of sight in a moment. The stalker follows; he again climbs a considerable way up the heights; he applies the telescope, but nothing of life can he behold, except his few followers on the knolls around him. With his ear to the ground he listens, and amidst the roar of innumerable torrents, faintly hears the dogs baying the quarry, but sees them not; he moves on from hill to hill towards the sound, and eventually another shot makes the hart his own. The deer are then bled and gralloched, and partially covered with peat; the horns are left upright, and a handkerchief is tied to them to mark the spot, that the hill-men may find them at the close of the day. Let the reader imagine how much the interest of all this is enhanced by the majestic scenery of an immense, trackless, treeless forest-to which domesticated life is a stranger-where mountain, corrie, cairn, and glen, thrown promiscuously together, present the grandest of savage landscapes, and as the field of wild adventure, cast into shade what Mr. Scrope not unaptly designates "the tame and hedge-bound country of the South."

Roe-deer shooting is conducted similarly to hare shooting in covert. While the covers are beaten, the shooters, placed at certain points, fire at the roes as they dash past them, with large buck shot. They are mostly seen in pairs, or bevies of five, six, or seven.

The red-deer is sometimes unharboured in cover; but for the most part his lair is on the plain or mountain-side; his horns seem to unfit him for making way through thickets. The roe beds in the woods; it is essentially the deer of the woods, being seldom found so much as three miles from cover. It does much mischief to young trees, and the labours of the agriculturist. When discovered in growing corn, it is usually shot with a rifle. In cultivated districts interspersed with wood and rock the roe abounds, and it is looked upon by

the farmer as a greater nuisance than the rabbit is in the South.

The roe-buck has in general three points to each horn, sometimes four or even more, and sometimes only one.

In August, the buck chases the doe, for the purpose, as is supposed, of making her give up suckling her kids; and so determined are the bucks on their object, that they will chase a doe for several hours without intermission round some favourite "knowe." The bucks become so worn by this exercise, that even poachers do not then think them worth shooting.

Roe-deer commence rutting (or tourning) the end of November, and give birth to their kids from the middle of May to the middle of June. They have sometimes only one, sometimes three, but generally two at a birth.

These graceful but diminutive creatures are much more difficult of domestication than the red-deer, and instances of their being tamed are fewer. We have heard of one living in a domestic state several years, during which it was often allowed its freedom in the woods, from whence it would always return.

THE FOWLING-PIECE.

Before making choice of a gun, the sportman should determine what weight he can conveniently carry. The heaviest gun, as regards shooting, will be most effective; but he should recollect, that unless he be a very robust person, a light gun will, on