WILD EX MOOR. 39 



be distinguished at a distance from hinds. At 

 the summit they stayed again and regarded 

 me, then moved another quarter of a mile, 

 and again looked back ; and so constantly 

 stopping to watch me, by degrees fetched 

 a circle, and returned to the same cover 

 far down in the coombe. I have called 

 these stags for the convenience of writing, 

 but strictly, in deer language, the largest 

 one old enough for hunting was a stag ; the 

 other they would now call a young male 

 deer ; in the olden time he would have been 

 called a brocke or brocket. 



As I turned from the fir-cover out into the 

 moor I noticed a small shrub of rhododendron 

 flowering brightly among the dark heather, 

 far indeed from those tennis-lawns with 

 which it is associated about town. It was 

 the only flower at that time in all the miles 

 of dark moor over which I had walked 

 under the burning sun. Some one had 

 planted it, some one who loved the tall deer. 

 If you can find it — if — you will find a spot 



