PREFACE. 



To WRITE a Preface for the book of a friend is 

 not always easy, and when the friend has been taken 

 away by untimely death, the task becomes melan- 

 choly as well as difBcult, for the pages of the proof 

 sheets continually remind one of days and of 

 incidents and of deductions drawn from them which 

 one would like to talk over if it were but possible. 



Yet are regrets lightened if the work is one 

 calculated to keep alive the remembrance of the 

 writer, and that may fairly be predicted of this little 

 volume on the Red Deer of Exmoor. So much has 

 been written of recent years about the Wild Stag 

 Hunting of the West Country that it might be 

 thought there was hardly room for another book, 

 but Mr. Hamilton has made a fascinating addition 

 10 the literature on the subject, and has turned to 

 good account all the knowledge he had acquired of 

 the sport and of the country. 



In some respects he had exceptional qualifications. 

 Born in 1855 below the Cotswold Hills he was early 

 entered to hunting in the country where Shakespeare 



