DEEE-STALKING.] 



SHOOTING, 



[dEEE- STALKING. 



Xenophon ; and it forms a conspicuous item 

 in Anglo-Saxon history. During the middle 

 ages, we find that it was pursued in most of 

 the countries of Europe. As practised in 

 those parts of the Highlands of Scotland, and 

 in other mountainous countries, deer-stalking 

 is by no means a drawing-room amusement. 

 It keeps the powers of both mind and body 

 upon the full stretch, and takes us into scenes of 

 the most magnificent and sublime description. 

 In the Fennyless Filgrim, of Taylor, the 

 water-poet, who flourished about a couple of 

 centuries ago, we find the following description 

 of deer-stalking as it was pursued at that time : 

 — " I thank my good Lord Erskine ; be com- 

 manded that I should always be lodged in his 

 lodging, the kitchen being always on the side 

 of a bank, many kettles and pots boiling, and 

 many spits turning and winding, with great 

 variety of cheer, as pigeons, bens, capons, 

 chickens, partridge, moorcocks, heathcocks, 

 capercallies, and ptarmigans; good ale, sack, 

 white and claret, and most potent ag^iia viice. 

 All these birds, &c., and more, we had con- 

 tinually in superfluous abundance, caught by 

 our falconers, fowlers, fishers, and brought by 

 my Lord Marr's tenants and purveyors to 

 victual our camp, which consisted of fourteen 

 or fifteen hundred men and horses. The 

 manner of hunting is this : five or six hundred 

 men do rise early in the morning, and they do 

 disperse themselves divers ways, and seven, 

 eight, or ten miles' compasa, they do bring or 

 chase in the deer in many herds (two, three, 

 or four hundred in a herd), to such or such a 

 place, as the noblemen shall appoint them ; 

 then, when the day is come, the lords and 

 gentlemen of their companies do ride and go 

 to the said places, sometimes wading up to 

 the middle through burns and rivers ; and then 

 they, being come to the place, do lie down on 

 the ground till their foresaid scouts, which are 

 called the tinckell, do bring down the deer; 

 but as the proverb says of a bad cook, so these 

 tinckell men do lick their own fingers; for 

 besides their bows and arrows, which they 

 carry with them, we can hear now and then 

 an arquebuss or musket-shot go off", which 

 they do seldom discharge in vain ; then, after 

 we had stayed three hours, or thereabouts, we 

 might perceive the deer appear on the hills 

 round about ; which, being followed close, are 

 COS 



chased down into the valley where we lay ; 

 then, all the valley on each side being waylaid 

 with a hundred couple of strong Irish grey- 

 hounds, they are let loose, as occasion serves, 

 upon the herd of deer, that with dogs, guns 

 arrows, darts, in the space of two hours, four- 

 score fat deer were slain." 



At the great hunting gatherings which took 

 place in Scotland, under the auspices of the chief 

 nobility, during the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries, fire-arms were occasionally used to 

 kill the red deer. These hunting forai/s were 

 conducted upon a most gigantic scale of mag- 

 nificence, and were attended by many thousands 

 of the clansmen, who encompassed extensive 

 tracts of country, and drove the game to where 

 their respective chiefs were located. In an en- 

 tertainment of this kind given by the Earl of 

 Athol to James V., the queen, his mother, the 

 pope's ambassador, and many hundreds of the 

 most distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the 

 court, there was a kind of palace constructed, of 

 green timber, interwoven with boughs, provided 

 with turrets, and moated completely round. 

 The hunting continued three days ; and we are 

 told that many of the animals were shot with 

 the gun, through the apertures of the rough 

 building ; and that even some of the ladies were 

 bold enough to fire ofi'some of those field-pieces, 

 which were then of considerable size. 



The natural shyness or wariness of the deer, 

 suggests many devices to overreach them. 

 Almost every sportsman has some general 

 method of his own to get fairly within range of 

 them, some of which have been immortalised by 

 Sir E. Landseer upon the canvas. The sports- 

 man must always approach them up-wind, to 

 prevent his being scented, for they possess the 

 faculty of smell in high perfection. Sometimes 

 a circuit of several miles has to be taken before 

 they can be approached so as to give a fair 

 chance of sport. Weather, as in every other 

 sport, has much to do with success in deer- 

 stalking. When this is of such a kind as to 

 oblige the deer to frequent the well-heads, or 

 pools of water, and more especially if these be 

 in a locality where there is any portion of 

 brushwood or shelter for the gunner, then his 

 chances of success are considerably increased. 

 If otherwise, the labour, of course, is con- 

 siderably more severe, and the chances of good 

 sport less likely to be so plentiful. 



