HUNTING THE WILD RED DEER. 213 



there is no sport in all the world that can rival the chase of the 

 wild red deer. A stranger desirous of knowing all its delights had 

 better not begin stag-hunting in the early August days. During 

 the first two or three weeks of each season only old harts, heavy 

 with the fat of summer idleness and too cunning to run straight, 

 are hunted. The harbourer is proud to show his skill in slotting 

 the heaviest deer of a herd, and a master who knows his business 

 will have these killed before he allows the five or six-year-old 

 gallopers to be pursued. In the interests of farmers, who are the 

 best friends of stag-hunting, it is important that cunning veterans 

 of the forest should be sacrificed first, for they do more damage to 

 crops than twice as many younger ones. 



These old harts, however, are not brought to bay without the 

 exercise of much skilful woodcraft, and, though such hunting may 

 lack the element of rapturous excitement, it has charms for all who 

 love hounds and understand their work. Let the stranger with 

 these qualifications get permission to accompany Anthony 

 Huxtable into covert when the tufters are taken to where a heavy 

 stag has been harboured. Three or four couples of the oldest and 

 most trustworthy hounds are selected for this work, and the 

 remainder of the pack kenneled in a barn, or any building that may 

 be handy. To throw all the hounds into covert at once would be 

 to defeat the first object of tufting, which is to rouse the harboured 

 deer and no other, though a score or more may be lying in the 

 thickets of the same great woodland. The stranger should provide 

 himself with a sure-footed hack for this work, leaving his hunter 

 where the pack is. The tufters will perhaps have to thread that 

 wooded valley again and again before they can force the right stag 

 away, and one who would watch them at every turn must be 



