86 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



hit it off by themselves. I should have hesitated to 

 make this avowal, perhaps, if I had not seen in The 

 Field a similar confession by one of the most gifted 

 of the hunting correspondents of that paper, the 

 *' Phantom " of the Belvoir. But with the deer tribe 

 this feeling must, I think, always be strongest, and 

 with the little ones most of all. The smallest I ever 

 shot, which has a Latin name much longer than him- 

 self,^ is known in Ceylon as a "mouse deer," but he is 

 rather larger than that animal, being, in fact, when 

 full grown, as large as a hare. But of European 

 animals the roe, in my opinion, is the most deserving 

 of sympathy, and fares worst of all, being mostly shot 

 with a "scatter gun," even in Germany, where the 

 maxim, '^ Zmn Wild dasz auf Schalen geht, gehoi^t die 

 Kugel/' 2 obtains. 



Meanwhile Dinah has come up, and is snuffing the 

 buck all over, but not offering to touch it, never having 

 been blooded, and apparently hunting none the worse 

 for it. I take up a foreleg, and make an incision above 

 the knee sufficient to draw the extensor tendon 

 through, and pass the other foreleg between this and 

 the leg itself. The laws of woodcraft dictate this 

 procedure with a roe, whereas we " harde " a hare or 

 rabbit with the tendon of the hind leg. I must 

 confess nothing delights me more than this old science 

 (so neglected in England), with its quaint customs 

 and maxims. Why, for instance, should the man 

 who is dressing a stag never step over it ? It is easier 

 to understand the maxim that, if royalty is present, 

 he must not remove his coat or hat, though this, too, 



^ Tragulus Stanleyanus. 

 2 " Por game with hooved feet 

 The bullet is meet." 



