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SHOOTING THE HARE

Loch Rannoch, and gives an impression of vast distance in the view before us.

A whole day of gazing would not exhaust the pleasure to be derived from a prospect of such magnificence; but we have climbed to this eminence on other thoughts intent, and must give our attention to the business of the day.

Far away below us we can see the large ring of drivers, which has encircled the hill and is working its way upwards towards our seat. Soon the clear atmosphere brings to our ears the shouts and cries of the men and boys, mostly couched in a tongue unknown to us, as they rouse hare after hare from its seat and send it fleeting towards us up the hill. Now and then arises a positive storm of shrieks and objurgations as a self-willed hare resolutely turns back and breaks through the line of the beaters. Soon the hillside between us and the men is alive with hares running in long strings along the little paths that seam the hillsides, skirting the burns, circling round the big rocks, but leading ever upwards. It is just the time when their coats begin to change; some are in the brown garb of summer, a few are nearly all white, many are in the transition stage, and of a kind of skewbald colour. A strange, weird Jacob's flock they look as they come stringing