CHAPTER XIII 
DARTMOOR. 
Most people have a general idea that there is good fishing and excellent 
scenery to be met with on Dartmoor. Its wild tors and rocky glens appear 
without fail in every collection of photographs. Pictures of Holne Chase 
and the Buckland drives form an inseparable adjunct to all guides to Devon- 
shire, and everyone has heard of its wild cattle and wild ponies. Lastly, 
there are few after-dinner conversations amongst members of the angling 
fraternity in which the waters of the Dart and its tributaries do not meet 
with frequent and well-merited eulogiums. 
Many, however, are doubtless not aware that for the small sum of ten 
shillings a licence can be obtained, which enables the holder to shoot over 
the unenclosed parts of the moor, and a short description of the birds to be 
met with, and the places they frequent, may perhaps be of interest to the 
numerous class. of sportsmen who can put up with a small bag gained by 
a good day’s tramp over rough country. A zigzag railway from Yelverton, 
which dodges backwards and forwards among the tors so sharply that 
passengers in the last carriage can almost ogle the occupants of the first, 
lands one, probably about eight o’clock in the evening, at the station of 
Princetown, a village which owes its existence to the convict prison situated 
on the adjoining hill. 
After being carefully scrutinized by some of its officials, the visitor must 
now choose between putting up at the Duchy Hotel, or driving one and a 
half miles onwards to Two Bridges, where excellent accommodation can 
also be obtained on the very bank of the East Dart. The latter hostelry 
will naturally commend itself to the angler, while Princetown is more 
convenient for the shooter, who could, moreover, at the Duchy obtain the 
aid of a thoroughly trustworthy setter, and a setter is a sime gua non on 
Dartmoor. The next thing is to procure a licence. This is granted by the 
bailiff of Dartmoor, who lives close by at Tor Royal, and gives permission 
to shoot anything except hares and Grey Hen within certain roughly defined 
boundaries included under the term ‘“unenclosed lands in the Forest and 
