you are within gunshot! Poor will be your
chance at the wild duck on the shore, if the
whaup be near; for his sharp eye will spy
you out, as you crawl forward face downward,
and at his shrill warning, "whirr"
will sound the wings of the quacking flock,
as they rise far over your head, and you
rise shaking off the dirt and cursing the
tell-tale. When a band of curlews alight,
be sure that not one avenue of approach
is unguarded; look with a telescope, and
mark the out-lying guards—one high up on
a rock, another peering round the corner of
a cliff, a third far up on the land, and a last
straggler perhaps passing over your own
head with a whistle to his brethren. In all
our sporting experience we have known only
one of these birds to have been shot sitting;
and this one was slain on a hillside by
Hamish Shaw, who held his gun between
his teeth and crawled through the heather,
on his stomach, like a snake.

The Wanderer and Hamish Shaw slew
many a whaup in the fjords at Boisdale.
Nowhere in the Highlands were these birds
so plentiful; they gathered in great flocks,
literally darkening the sky; but nowhere,
also, were they shyer and wilder. The
most successful plan was to row the punt
slowly to the spot where the birds thronged
the rocks, with their heads and bodies all
turned one way; and, when they arose
screaming, to run the chance of picking off
solitary individuals at long distances. It
was found that the curlew always felt
himself perfectly safe, flying at one hundred
yards; and, with careful shooting and
proper loading, Big Benjamin could do
wonders at that distance at any tolerably-
sized bird on the wing.

But what says the reader to the wild
goose? A more noticeable fellow surely,
and worthy of the sportsman's gun. Even
far south in England, in severe weather, you
have been startled by the loud "quack,
quack, quack," above your head, and, looking
upward, you have seen, far up in the air,
the flock flying swiftly in the shape of a
wedge, going God knows whither, with
out-stretched necks in noble flight. The
tame goose, the fat, waddling, splay-footed
gosling, is an eyesore, a monstrosity fit
only for the honours of onion-stuffing and
apple-sauce at the Christmas season; but
his wild kinsman is Hyperion to a satyr.

We had been storm-staid for a week in
Loch Skifort, a lonely sea- fjörd about
midway between Loch Boisdale and Loch
Maddy, affording a snug anchorage in one
of its numerous bays—MacCormack's Bay
by name. So wild were the squalls, for
days, that we could not safely got on shore
with the punt, although, we were anchored
scarcely two hundred yards from land.
Now, by sheer blockheadedness, having
calculated on reaching Loch Maddy and its
shops at least a fortnight before, we had run
short of nearly everything—bread, biscuits,
sugar, tea, coffee, drink of all kinds; and but
for a supply of eggs and milk, brought off
at considerable peril from a lonely hut a
mile away, we should have been in sore
distress indeed. At last, the Wanderer and
Hamish Shaw went off for a forage with
guns and dog, determined, if all else failed,
and they could not purchase supplies, to
do justifiable murder on a helpless sheep.
Though the wind was still high, they sailed
up Loch Skifort with the punt and lugsail,
and having reached the head of the loch,
and drawn the boat up high and dry, they
set off on foot with Big Benjamin and the
double-barrel.

About five hundred yards distant, and
communicating with Loch Skifort by a
deep artificial trench, nearly passable by a
boat at high tide, lies another smaller loch
of brackish water, which in its turn
communicates through reedy shallows with
Loch Bee—a great lake reaching almost
to the western ocean. Dean Monro, who
visited the place long ago, speaks of Loch
Bee as famous for its red mullet—"ane fish
the size and shape of ane salmont;" and it
still abounds in both, fresh-water and ocean
fishes:

           For to this lake, by night and day,
           The great Sea-water finds its way,
           Through long, long windings of the hills,
           And drinks up all the pretty rills,
              And rivers large and strong.*
* Wordsworth's Highland Boy.

The loch was only about half a mile broad,
so the sportsmen determined to separate,
each taking one of the banks: Hamish
Shaw shouldering Big Benjamin (which
was heavily charged with the largest drop
shot) and the Wanderer the double-barrel.
The shores of the loch were boggy and
covered with deep herbage, with great
holes here and there as pitfalls to the
unwary pedestrian. The Wanderer stumbled
along for about a mile without seeing so
much as the glint of a passing wing. At
last, he perceived a small and desolate
island, over which two black-backed gulls
hovered, screaming at the sight of a
stranger. From a corner of this island
rose a duck, and sped swiftly, out of
gunshot, down the water. The