io4 RED DEER. 



the height of the summer often choose places 

 where the wind draws through a scanty- 

 plantation of trees near the ridge of a hill. 

 There are seldom any trees, not even firs 

 or bushes, on the heights of Exmoor. The 

 winter gales are so severe that trees will not 

 grow, though they flourish in the coombes 

 * under the wind,' and up to the very line of 

 the wind. Stags seem in summer to like the 

 draught of air under trees, and indeed are 

 hot by nature, and always glad to cool them- 

 selves, as in water. The day being over, the 

 stag at dusk comes out again to feed. 



Now the work of the ' harbourer ' is to find 

 where a runnable stag is in ' harbour ' on the 

 morning of the meet, that is, in what particular 

 copse or part of a wood a stag has gone to lie 

 for the day, and where the hounds will find 

 him. It must be a runnable stag, or warrant- 

 able, a term in its strict meaning indicating 

 a stag of five years, with not less than two 

 points on top at the upper end of the antler. 

 Occasionally a stag is run at four years, 



