DEER-STALKING. ICl 



all clovm tlie middle ages, we find many of tlie most important 

 events connected Vv-ith its prosecution in most of the countries of 

 Europe. 



With tlie hunting of the deer by dogs, we do not profess to 

 meddle ; but confine our remarks and statements to the shooting of 

 them with the gun. 



Deer-stalking is practised in those parts of the Highlands of 

 Scotland, and in other countries, which are mountainous and inac- 

 cessible to anything but the pedestrian, his gun, and his dogs. It 

 is a most laborious and excitable amusement ; keeping the powers 

 of both mind and body upon the full stretch. _ It takes the sports 

 man into the wildest and!^ most sublime districts, and opens out to 

 his contemplation some of the most magnificent landscapes that 

 can captivate the senses and excite and ravish the imagination. 

 The sport, considered merely hi relation to the outward adventures 

 and rambles necessarily connected with it, is one of the liighest 

 and most manly kind. 



Deer-stalking was written about, two centuries and a half ago, 

 by Taylor, called the water poet He says, m liis Pennyless Fil- 

 ciriin (we give the modern speUing), " I thank my good Lord 

 Erskine ; he commanded that I shouid always be lodged in his 

 lodging, the kitchen being always on the side of a bank, many 

 kettles and pots boiling, and many spits turning and winding with 

 great variety of cheer, as pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, part- 

 ridge, moorcocks, heathcocks, capercalLies, and ptarmigans ; good 

 ale, sack, white and claret, and most potent aqua vitde. All these, 

 and more than these, we had continually in superfluous abundance, 

 caught by our falconers, fowlers, fishers, and l3rought_ by my Lord 

 Marr's tenants and purveyors to victual our camp, which consisted 

 of fourteen or fifteen hundred men and horses. The manner of 

 hunting is this : five or six hundred men do rise early m the 

 morning, and they do disperse themselves divers ways, and seven, 

 eight, or ten miles compass, they do bring or chase in the deer in 

 many herds (two, three, or four hundred in a herd), to such or 

 such a place, as the noblemen shall appoint them ; then when the 

 day is come, the lords and gentlemen of then- companies do_ ride 

 and go to the said places, sometimes wading up to the middle 

 through burns and rivers, and then they being come to the place, 

 do he down on the ground tiU their foresaid scouts, wliich are 

 caUed the tinckeU, do bring down the deer • but as the proverb 

 says of a bad cook, so these tinckell men do lick their own fingers, 

 for besides their bows and arrows, which they carry with them, 

 we can hear now and then an arquebuss or musket-shot go off, 

 which they do seldom discharge in vain ; then after we had stayed 

 three hours, or thereabouts, we mi«-ht perceive the deer appear 

 on the hills round about, which bemg followed close are chased 

 down into the valley where we lay; then all the valley on each 

 side being waylaid with a hundi-ed couple of strong Irish grey- 

 hounds, they are let loose as occasion serve mpon the herd of 



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