OF HUNTING A STAG. 89 



stag treats us to an exhibition of cunning of the 

 highest order, and the huntsman shows us that 

 hounds can hunt as well as run. In the course of 

 the season 1905, hounds ran a stag from Horner at 

 a fair hunting pace, by way of Chettisford Water, to 

 Three Combes Foot and checked. They hit the line 

 beside the bank and fence which separates Lark- 

 barrow from Acmead, and ran it right up to the 

 Alderman's Barrow Road. Here the deer had turned 

 away and run parallel to the road nearly to Alder- 

 man's Barrow, where, after running a big figure of 

 eight, he doubled back on his tracks, and, clearing 

 the fence with a bound, went away to Swap Hill. 

 As luck would have it the field had crossed the fence 

 lower down to avoid the bad ground, and had ridden 

 on into the road ; consequently there were no horses 

 to foil the ground close behind hounds, which worked 

 out the figure of eight in faultless style, carried the 

 line back to the fence, and, to use the words of 

 Shakespeare, " picked the cold fault cleanly out." 



They would never have carried it back through a 

 hundred horses, and much time would have been lost 

 in fruitless casts, even if the line had been recovered 

 at all. 



When hounds are hunting slowly or casting in the 

 open, much harm can be done by the wings of the 

 field pushing forward, so that the field is like a half- 

 moon, A cast forward is, it is true, even more 

 generally successful with a stag than with a fox, but it 

 is just on these occosions, when hounds can only 



