HUNTING THE WILD FALLOW DEER. 441 



the Duke you must have two horses out. If you can't run to 

 that, you had better sit tight till the tufting's done." Person- 

 ally. I prefer to modify his excellent principles by seeing some 

 little of the tufting-work and the find, while keeping in mind 

 that the main trial is yet to come. However, this by the way. 

 I am not as yet sufficiently advanced to act the part of school- 

 master. 



The prolonged trailing up to deer that have moved, often 

 forms another part, full of interest and beauty, of their morning 

 task. 



To-day the deer had been closely and recently harboured. 

 So, after a two-mile saunter along the hill top, we were taken 

 to a wood, within a certain quarter of which they were known 

 to be still grazing or reposing. Open heather and hillside was 

 on our right ; and out over this they came bouncing forth — 

 four lusty buck, the leader and biggest carrying but a single 

 horn, the other three, full antlered but comparatively young, 

 bounding after him in single file. One of the tufters — old 

 Moonstone, who would seem to have a special talent for this 

 portion of the work, being a close line hunter, full of tongue 

 yet free of action — was at their heels : the other couple, of the 

 same two that figured on the last occasion, followed forth to the 

 cheer, and were soon straining over the heather in pursuit of 

 the flying deer. The latter paused half-way up the slope for 

 one more look ; then flew forward again, and we had a rough, 

 cheery gallop of some sixteen or seventeen minutes, pulling up 

 on a sudden at the ironbound fence of Puckpits — and below us 

 to all appearance the whole world wood. The sound of hounds 

 had faded out ; and to a stranger it looked as though Hercules 

 himself could not have handled such a task as clearing those 

 huge woodlands, and therein deciphering the course of hounds 

 and the choice of deer. When, previous to 1851, Mr. Lovell 

 first inaugurated the chase of the fallow deer, there were none 

 of these great pine inclosures. How glorious must have been 

 the Forest then ! Now, to the ignorant stranger, it is nothing 

 less than a marvel that these great woodlands can be tackled at 



