CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 105 



read and studied by the harbourers of the present 

 day. The most skilful of the class will find valuable 

 hints of which they might avail themselves, to be 

 derived from the writings of one whose work was 

 compiled from the best foreign authors, and after 

 great personal experience and observation, and at a 

 period when hunting and the rules to be observed 

 in the chase were treated as a science, and occupied 

 the attention of people far more than at the present 

 day. It is obvious that the extreme shyness and 

 sagacity, and the exquisite sense of smell possessed 

 by the deer, make it necessary to exercise great 

 caution in tracking them to their lairs ; and the duty 

 of harbouring should, as I have already said, be en- 

 trusted only to the most cautious and experienced. 



It often happens that the deer lie in the middle of 

 the wastes of Exmoor. This in former times was a 

 rare occurrence, but of late years, since the deer 

 have been driven away from the enclosed lands in 

 many parts of the country, a deer is frequently 

 harboured in the open. In order to harbour an 

 outlying deer, it is necessary for the harbourer, at 

 break of day, to select some high and commanding 

 point in the neighbourhood in which the deer is 

 supposed to feed, whence he can watch the move- 

 ments of the animal. When the deer leave their 



