OF BLOODING DEER-HOUNDS. 319 



your remaining chance of sport for the day : but on the 

 contrary, if he is baldly wounded, and you do not press 

 him on, he will gradully get worse and worse and fall out 

 from the parcel, when you will have him safe enough. 

 The forester should then pass the track or taint of the 

 herd, and either lay the dog on the scent, or put him in 

 sight of the quarry, and he will soon bring it to bay, if he 

 is worthy of his ancestors. But I have touched upon this 

 subject before. 



Some sportsmen are accustomed to give their dogs 

 portions of the deer's liver when he is gralloched ; but, after 

 having blooded them once or twice, to enter them, I do 

 not think the custom should be continued, a dog's love for 

 sport being independent of eating ; for pointers will hunt 

 gallantly all day long, and they are never permitted to 

 touch their game, nor even to run after it. Harriers, 

 likewise, will persevere from morning till night, and yet 

 the hare is always preserved for the table, if possible, 

 most particularly in a subscription pack. 



My objection to the system lies principally in the two 

 following reasons : the first is, that a dog can never run 

 a second chase properly after having been so fed ; the 

 second, that when he has a deer in a wounded and dying 

 state, he is apt to help himself from the haunches before 

 you have time to come up. A lurcher once damaged my 

 sport in this villanous manner. I had wounded a deer 

 which came out unexpectedly from Glen Croinie, against 

 my wind, during a heavy mist. A dog belonging to the 

 Duke was slipped and laid on the scent. For a long time, 

 we could neither hear nor discover the bay : at length we 

 came suddenly upon it, if bay it might be called. The 



