128 ADVANTAGES OF BALDNESS. 



niggardly in this matter, we will allow him to doze occa- 

 sionally from about midnight till half-past three in the 

 morning. Our man is thus properly refreshed, and we 

 retain our character for liberality. 



Steady, very steady, should his hand be, and at times 

 wholly without a pulse. Hyacinthine curls are a very 

 graceful ornament to the head, and accordingly they have 

 been poetically treated of; but we value not grace in our 

 shooting jacket, and infinitely prefer seeing our man, like 

 Dante's Frati, " die non hanno coperchio piloso al capo ; " 

 because the greater the distance from the eye to the 

 extreme point of the head, so much the quicker will the 

 deer discover their enemy, than he will discover them. 

 His pinnacle or predominant, therefore, should not be or- 

 namented with a high finial or tuft. Indeed the less hair 

 he has upon it the better. It is lamentable to think that 

 there are so few people who will take disinterested advice 

 upon this or any other subject ; but without pressing the 

 affair disagreeably, I leave it to a deer-stalker's own good 

 sense to consider whether it would not *be infinitely better 

 for him to shave the crown of his head at once, than to run 

 the risk of losing a single shot during the entire season. 

 A man so shorn, with the addition of a little bog earth 

 rubbed scientifically over the crown of his head, would be 

 an absolute Ulysses on the moor, and (c&teris paribus) 

 perfectly invincible. 



Do this or not, as you please, gentlemen : I am far from 

 insisting upon it with rigour, because, to my utter shame 

 and confusion be it spoken, I never did it myself. 



When Sir Francis Head fled over the Pampas, mounted 

 upon wild horses, as if upon the griffin of Astolfo, he 



