Some years ago, preparatory to a few days’ stalking in a deer forest in Inverness-shire, I arrived one evening at the Lodge; and later on about half-past ten there returned from the hill a guest in a state of great dejection who had never stalked until he went out in this forest a few days before. I felt very sorry for him, for he had been keen to secure a good head and said that he had had a splendid chance of a fine stag standing broadside at about eighty yards and had missed him. This was his last chance as he was leaving early next morning. Two days later I was out on the same beat when the stalker suddenly grasped me by the arm and said, “There is a stag lying down there to the left of that hill below us. Are you seeing his horns above the ridge?” We went cautiously down in the direction of the stag, but had not gone far before we discovered that the stag was dead. “That,” said the stalker, “must be the stag Mr. X. shot at two days ago.” We examined the stag and found that he had been shot apparently through the heart from the knoll from which X. had taken his shot; it was obviously the same stag. The stalker then told me that X. wished to stalk the last hundred yards alone and had asked him to stay behind, that X. had the shot and came back saying that he had missed the stag. Neither the stalker nor X. had thought it worth while to look for the stag. In the case of X., who was a novice at stalking, I was not surprised, but I was amazed that the stalker had not done so, although he was young and not very experienced. So X. secured a good head after all, and no doubt both he and the stalker learnt a lesson which neither is likely to forget, but at the cost to X. of much unnecessary misery and humiliation and incidentally to his host of much good venison. It is sometimes difficult to be sure what is the result of one’s shot, and it is a great assistance to have the opinion of an experienced stalker whether he has his glass on the beast at the moment the shot is fired or not.