STALKING BUCKS 251 



shot. I have also been lying by several bucks on my face in the 

 heather, unable to judge the best deer because they were also 

 couched, and, to raise them, I have given a short sharp cry, not 

 too loud ; and in many instances the human voice, well regulated, 

 will reach them enough to make them aware that a man is 

 within hearing, without exposing his ambush or sending them 

 away. When they rise to look about them then is the time for 

 choice. Occasionally this plan fails; for, if the voice reaches 

 them too distinctly, they bolt off with their haunches to the 

 danger, and a shot cannot be taken. 



When the deer were very shy, at the commencement of 

 October, I wanted a good buck, and took a great deal of trouble 

 to get him. After searching the forest all day I discovered a 

 herd of about thirty deer, and among them some of the best 

 bucks left in the vicinity of Burley Lodge ; but they were all on 

 a little narrow lawn, feeding or lying down, in the midst of 

 short heather, with not a bush to screen the stalker. It was a 

 gusty day, with occasional showers ; the wind being high, much 

 in my favour. It was a long and a wet stalk I had to make 

 through the wet weather, and when the sun came out I lay still, 

 when it blew and rained, then crawled on again. The heather 

 was scarce above the top of my head, however low it was carried ; 

 and in some places, to keep out of sight, I was obliged to crawl 

 on my breast. Now and then a little suspicious and capricious 

 doe would look about her ; once she either caught sight of my 

 shoulder or a motion in the heather, and stared for about ten 

 minutes right at me, but I lay on my face, with an occasional 

 peep between the roots, and, so long as her forehead and erect 

 ears were visible, I remained still. She at last also lay down, and 

 then, when I looked up, nothing could be seen of the herd but 

 the broad palmated tops of the old bucks' horns. " Now is the 

 time," I thought ; and on I crept, resolved not to cease from an 

 endeavour in this cramped position, wet as I was, till I got 

 within shot. I peeped up again, and found myself within fifty 

 yards of the herd, all of them very quiet and lying down close 

 together, their haunches to the wind and their heads obliquely 



