150 REMINISCENCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



now find it pursued with much ardour by many 

 noblemen and gentlemen, who pay very high rent 

 to the Scotch landlords for the indulgence of their 

 taste. I have heard that Lord Henry Bentinck 

 pays for two forests nearly 3000/. per annum. This 

 sport requires the full development of muscle, sinew, 

 and wind, as well as all mental energies. Both deer- 

 stalking and fox-hunting are excellent schools for 

 a military man, for to be successful in either requires 

 skilful tactics and a sharp and keen eye in examining 

 the features of the country, and the latter to be a good 

 horseman. I have heard it more than once mentioned, 

 that the Duke of Wellington considered officers who 

 had been thorough fox-hunters best adapted for the 

 duty of the outpost. There can be no doubt that stag- 

 hunting is a more social sport, provided the country 

 will admit of this chase ; but in the Highlands of 

 Scotland, where the country is so wild and precipitous, 

 and presents so many obstacles to the chase, hunting 

 the stag with hounds is quite impossible. Yet in some 

 parts of Scotland the harts are coursed with deer 

 hounds, and I have mentioned a most interesting 

 account, in which two famous deer-hoimds succeeded 

 in capturing a stag after an arduous chase. I have 

 always understood that the grandfather of the present 

 Duke of Athol *, who introduced the larch tree into 



* I had the honoiir of dining -flath the Duke when he resided in 

 Great George Street, "Westminster. At that time he was about eighty 

 years of age. He had lived to see a frigate built of the timber of t|ie 

 larch which he had planted. She was called the " Athol." A curious 

 circumstance occurred when the Duke fu-st imported the young larch trees 

 from Norway. His gardener, conceiving they should be kept warm, 

 put them in a hot-house, when, having apparently died, they were thrown 

 on a dung-heap. The gardener wrote to his Grace to announce their fate, 



