Stag-htintmg 



passes so noiselessly along, his bated breath seems 

 the most audible thing about him, though his 

 horns are apt to make a curious rattling noise 

 when rushing through an oak coppice. The 

 huntsman and tufters — steady old hounds — first 

 make their way to the stag's whereabouts. The 

 tufting is done, for the most part, on pony back. 

 A 13-hand Exmoor pony can carry a 9-stone 

 huntsman among the bushy paths and rocky by- 

 ways well. A stag to whom self-preservation is 

 first nature will do anything rather than risk the 

 open, and the young male deer who generally ac- 

 companies him he will invariably try to force 

 into his place. His ingenuity is miraculous ; he 

 will attempt to drive out any other deer weaker 

 than himself ; a stag has been known to turn 

 out another from the furze and appropriate his 

 bed while the hunt was in full cry. Two stags 

 have actually fought in front of the pack as to 

 who should be the scapegoat. 



In a work of this sort details of memorable 

 runs, measurements of heads, ages of stags, their 

 jumps over cliffs, their deaths in the water of 

 Porlock Bay, cannot be gone into at much length. 

 It has been often noticed that in a choppy sea, a 

 mile or so from shore, a beaten deer drowns in 

 the curl and wash of the waves. 



One of the most appalling spots in Red Deer 

 Land is that bordering on the Severn. To those 



85 



