OF THE HARBOURER. 53 



night — he is always a welcome guest — will put up 

 his cob and proceed to take council with the farmer 

 or farmers near, when he will probably hear woeful 

 tales of the amount of injury done to the growing 

 crops by numbers of " terrible girt stags." These he 

 will receive with all reserve, well knowing that the 

 desire of every farmer in the district is to have his 

 particular stag disturbed and if possible killed. This 

 very feeling of keen, good sportsmanship tends 

 inevitably to exaggerate in their minds the size and 

 age of the stag ; besides, a farmer is, after all, a 

 mortal, and does not want a greedy and mischievous 

 animal ravaging his best crops at night for longer 

 than can be helped. There is nothing for it but for 

 the harbourer to walk round and look — not to look, or 

 attempt to look, at the stags — but to look at where 

 they have been feeding, to see what they have eaten, 

 how they have eaten it, and, if possible, to examine 

 the slots or prints of their feet, and so to judge of 

 their weight and age, and see in what covert each is 

 making his couch. He will note the gaps, technically 

 called " racks," in the fences which they use, going 

 and returning, carefully abstaining from climbing over 

 any of them himself, for the deer would wind him in 

 the morning and go another way, but rubbing out with 

 the end of his stick any slots at the rack or close by. 

 This is in case of bad weather, that he may know the 

 slot he finds in the morning to be fresh even if full of 

 water. A tour of all the feeding grounds will take 

 him till dusk and will involve sometimes a tramp of 



