OF HUNTING A STAG. gr 



Champflower, and killed him just as it got dark. 

 He must have run to the middle of the field, and 

 backed it on his own foil to the fence. 



Guillaume Bude, or Budaens, who wrote in 1467, 

 when speaking of the ruses of a stag to get rid of 

 hounds, relates a story told him by the Grand Veneur 

 of Louis XII. when he was hunting with him about 

 six leagues from Paris. " The hounds, after hunting 

 steadily would not hunt forward or heel. It was as 

 if the stag had been bewitched and carried off into 

 the sky. Then the marvellous discovery was made 

 that the stag, jumping into a tangled thicket, had 

 landed on a high whitethorn and sunk into its 

 branches, and, not being able to disentangle himself, 

 was thus supported and hidden in mid air." 



Deer show extraordinary cunning in picking ground 

 which will put hounds to the maximum of incon- 

 venience. Stony tracks which carry lit-tle or no scent, 

 and play the mischief with hounds' feet, have a 

 peculiar fascination for them, and the persistence 

 with which hinds will stick to the stony ground on 

 Dunkery and Croydon is w^onderful. The stunted 

 wind-clipped furze from 8 inches to a foot high 

 which abounds in some parts, notably on Grabhurst 

 and on some parts of the Quantocks, is a sore trial 

 to hounds, who can hardly get over it at all, and 

 puppies have been seen to lie down and yell ; but its 

 virtues are well known to the deer, who never fail to 

 go over as much of it as they can when any is near 

 their line. 



