OF TUFTING. 63 



hunt the amateurs who can be relied on to get to 

 hounds running hard in covert and effectively stop 

 them can be counted on the fingers of one hand. 

 More time would be wasted in getting hounds out of 

 a big covert than in the ordinary method of tufting, 

 and meantime your stag would have been conceded 

 an undue start. After all, an ounce of practice is 

 worth a ton of theory, and drawing with the pack 

 has been tried repeatedly in all sorts of circum- 

 stances. Experience has shown it to be a fatal 

 mistake unless <the harbourer is absolutely certain 

 there is only one deer, and the covert is of small 

 size, and even then it does not always prove a 

 success. 



Any sportsman spending a season on Exmoor, and 

 really trying to see and notice what hounds are 

 doing, is sure before the end of the season to see one 

 or two instances of the heartbreaking confusion 

 that may ensue from running into a big covert and 

 rousing from half a dozen to a score of fresh deer. 

 If one deliberately started the day with a muddle 

 of that kind the show of heads at the end of October 

 would indeed be a poor one. 



But when all is said and done, tufting is a dull 

 performance for the onlookers if it lasts for a long 

 time, as is in some instances inevitable. The field 

 are not allowed to come tufting, though some few old 

 hands may be asked to watch particular places. 



The rest assemble at some spot whence a general 

 view of the covert, always in a valley, can be obtained 



