258 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



was not much to choose between the three ; but we thought the 

 deer on the left the best, and resolved to have him. They fed 

 towards us in a position not offering a fair mark ; as in feeding 

 the head was in a line with the body, and an ill-judged shot 

 might have spoiled the whole buck. Upon the same lawn were 

 three old blackcocks feeding ; and their heads had been up more 

 than once at the alarm-note of a jay who fled from the thorns, 

 and sat chiding us on a distant oak. Luckily a hobby hawk 

 stooped at the jay and made our tormentor fly away shrieking 

 at him ; and the blackcocks, thinking they knew all about it, 

 fed on as quietly as before. But now a fresh stumbling-block 

 to success appeared in a couple of magpies who lit on the lawn ; 

 and then one of them, springing on to the back of the buck I 

 wished to kill, sat picking at the ticks that are more or less in 

 the coats of all the forest deer, and impeding the buck's advance. 

 When the magpie was up, the buck stood still, as if pleased with 

 the assistance the bird was rendering. All this time the two 

 other bucks, on whom the pie did not bestow his attention, kept 

 approaching our ambush, as did the blackcocks too, and every 

 moment I thought our whereabout would be detected by the one 

 or the other, and that the best buck would be warned of his 

 danger. Presently the buck with the magpie perched on his 

 haunches turned obliquely away, a position I particularly dislike 

 when desiring to kill the venison clean ; but, danger being in 

 every instant of delay, I asked Holloway for his shoulder, when, 

 not finding it steady, I changed, and pressed the rifle against 

 the side of the tree before me, intending to hit the buck through 

 the heart. The bullet struck him a trifle too forward, but gave 

 him his death-blow ; for he ran about thirty yards, and fell in 

 some high rushes, the astonished magpie thinking he could not 

 chatter nor fly fast enough to the woods. I loaded my rifle, and 

 we went up and discovered him not dead but bleeding to death : 

 however, as it was best to dispatch him as quickly as possible, 

 I got so near that I could see his antlers and the tip of one ear, 

 and, guessing his head, I fired; but, as often happens in a 

 partial view of the head, the ball grazed it only, when the buck 



