LETTER XVI. 177 



away from the home waters, on which the guns 

 are posted, to some distant lake, upon which 

 probably some other party are at work, and be 

 killed by them. We lost two stags in this way. 

 Only one of our hounds showed any breeding, 

 and he was only a half-bred one, and certainly 

 not the best of the pack. But in spite of their 

 want of breeding their performances are wonder- 

 ful. After an hour's dodging close to home, the 

 deer would often give the hound a straight run 

 of some fourteen miles before taking to the water, 

 after which the hound would try along the bank 

 for a little while to make sure that the stag had 

 not come out again, and then take up his own 

 tracks, and run heel until he came to the place 

 at which the tracker had started him ; here he 

 would take up his master's track and follow it 

 until he found him to once more be ready for 

 work. I remember in Ayrshire a celebrated 

 hound named Woodman, belonging to Mr. Mal- 

 colm, of Poltalloch, which stuck to a roe-deer 

 over a ringing run of fourteen miles, bringing the 

 roe back to be shot at the point at which it was 

 roused, and this was rightly thought an unusually 

 fine performance ; but it would be only an ordinary 

 day's work for one of these under-bred Yankee 

 deer-hounds. It seems to me that the excellence 

 of these hounds, and the self-reliance and close 



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