152 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



half-hearted style, and the herd of deer was reduced 

 to a very low ebb. The poacher was everywhere at 

 work, and it is a tradition that the bells were rung at 

 Exford to celebrate the shooting of a hind. In " The 

 Autobiography of a Poacher," John Holcombe, of 

 Dulverton, who is still alive and well, though getting 

 up -in years, recounts his early misdeeds, and the 

 open way in which poached \-enison was disposed of 

 in Dulverton. Mr. Thornton, in his book already 

 alluded to, states that there were on the Exmoor 

 side of the country in 1848 about thirty deer all told, 

 and perhaps as many more on the Dulverton side ; 

 but as the fortunes of staghunting revived, the 

 poacher ceased his work — public opinion was too 

 strong for him — and the deer began once more to 

 increase and multiply, till the herd now can only be 

 numbered in hundreds. 



The history of the West Country, from a hunting 

 point of view, would be singularly interesting if it 

 could be set out in detail, but the materials are very 

 slight, permitting us only to note from time to time 

 details of some long forgotten person or event, from 

 which we may gain some slight insight into the life 

 of the inhabitants of the districts, and the changes 

 that came over them. 



Presumably the forest of Exmoor belonged to the 

 Crown, and the Saxon kings made it a royal forest, 

 that is to say, a stretch of country where the game, 

 particularly the red deer, were preserved under the 

 sanction of the forest laws. 



