320 HUNTING PRELIMINARIES. 



likelihood of hunting being stopped by frost than later on. 

 Besides, there is the advantage to many, of a smaller field, 

 as more sportsmen appear in the field after Christmas 

 when their shooting is over. Naturally, the fallen leaves 

 and broken twigs which have accumulated in the ditches 

 during autumn, will require snow and thaws to clear 

 them out. An open February is the ideal month, but 

 if it is mild, the vixen question will arise all the 

 earlier in March. Towards the end of the season, the 

 pleasures of the chase are more or less alloyed by the 

 knowledge that vixens heavy with young, or suckling their 

 cubs, may be furnishers of blood. Of course hounds, when 

 possible, are stopped off a heavy vixen, or one which has laid 

 up her cubs. 



The season for hunting wild stag and buck is from early 

 in August to the middle of October ; the former being about 

 the time their heads become ' clean ' (devoid of velvet) ; and 

 the latter the beginning of their rutting season, during which 

 they lose condition, and do not regain it until the spring grass 

 appears. If they are fed, they will recover their strength much 

 quicker than if left to Nature. They are at their best during 

 summer, which is the only part of the year that is suitable for 

 hunting them. Wild stag are occasionally hunted in spring. 

 The rutting season is naturally the cause of their being unpro- 

 fitable animals to hunt in winter. The New Forest used to 

 hunt bucks in spring, and occasionally in winter. Although 

 bucks are a little later than stags, the same rules apply to 

 them. After the wild stag and buck season has closed, there 

 is a short interval before the commencement of hind hunting, 

 which comparatively poor sport goes on through the winter, 

 and ceases when hinds are palpably in calf. 



The roe ruts in summer, and is in condition all the winter. 

 Unlike other British deer, he sheds his horns in the autumn or 

 early winter, and consequently is our only wild male deer that 



