The Muckle Hart of Benmore[a] was the name given to a red deer stag that was stalked (hunted) by the 19th-century naturalist and hunter Charles William George St John.
[1] In his book Short Sketches of the Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands, he described the continuous hunt of the stag for six days and five nights, culminating in its dramatic demise on 1 October 1833.
[3] Charles St John was an aristocratic Englishman with a lifelong interest in natural history who settled in Scotland as a young man, initially at Rosehall in Sutherland in about 1833.
[4][5] St John later wrote an account of the pursuit in the 1846 book The Wild Sports and Natural History of the Scottish Highlands,[2] in which he described his encounter with the Muckle Hart in more detail.
They stay the night with Malcolm at his shieling (in Scottish dialect, a shepherd's hut used during summer grazing), and the next morning they spy the stag but, when they attempt to stalk him, he winds them.
In the darkness they hear a fiddle and wade a burn (small river) waist deep to enter a bothy (basic shelter) occupied by illicit whisky distillers, where they spend the night and Donald becomes drunk.
[7] Years after the stalk, Lionel Edwards and Harold Frank Wallace examined the mounted antlers of the Muckle Hart, which they described as "a well shaped head with thick horn, and very good brow points 13 inches long".