XX CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 



posterity of the good men and true — the Aclands, 

 Bassetts, Fortescues, Worths, Chichesters, and 

 others— by whom it has been fostered and pro- 

 moted, and of the incidents and peculiarities 

 connected with it. 



Considerine that the chase of the wild red deer 

 in the counties of Devon and Somerset has been 

 carried on almost without interruption from the 

 time of Queen Elizabeth, at least, and probably 

 for centuries before the reign of that sovereign, to 

 the present time, it seems extraordinary that ' the 

 tenth Muse, exclusively indigenous to England,' 

 should hitherto have been silent upon the subject 

 of this ancient and noble sport ; yet true it is that, 

 with the exception of occasional notices (excellent 

 in their way) appearing in the pages of the Sport- 

 ing Magazine, or in the journals devoted to sport- 

 ing matters, there has been no attempt to chronicle 

 the history of deer-hunting in the West of England, 

 to which part of the country the chase of the 

 animal has from many circumstances, but chiefly in 

 consequence of improvements in agriculture, and 

 the reclamation and cultivation of largre tracts of 

 land once barren and waste, of late years been 

 almost exclusively confined. 



I have long conceived the idea of collecting such 



