HUNTING THE WILD FALLOW DEER. 439 



when on a warm bank crowned with flowers we sate and 

 thought no harm," sings the most lovesome, and the most 

 proper of our poets though, if I remember the context right, 

 even he for one brief moment nearly strayed in the intoxication 

 of fancy and surrounding. 



By no means the least attraction of the Forest lies in the 

 fact that its animal life, or at any rate all its game life, is 

 wholly wild and natural. The gorgeous cock pheasant that 

 starts up from your feet or struts the rides before your horse is 

 mo coop-raised bird ; and it goes without saying that the 

 blackgame (for some reason or other not nearly so plentiful now 

 as two decades ago) are as absolutely untamed as the wood- 

 cocks that wend their way thither in autumn. So fully indeed 

 do the woodcock appreciate the liberty and scope of the forest 

 that they, like the turtle doves, will occasionally even remain to 

 nest. As example it is told that one recent spring a wood- 

 cock's nest with its quantum of eggs (however many that may 

 be) was found at the very spot where a buck had just died 

 before hounds. 



But of Monday, May 4th, and the staghounds. (By the way, 

 save me from entanglement of speech, and answer me this 

 Why do these staghounds hunt the buck, while her Gracious 

 Majesty's Buckhounds hunt the stag ? for I learn that in 

 forest parlance a stag is always a red deer, a buck a fallow 

 deer.) It is possible to reach a Forest meet by morning train 

 from the metropolis, though with existing railway-service such 

 a journey is scarcely a pastime of itself. The Crown lands 

 cover no great area ; and, indeed, its wild animals of every kind 

 must all listen to the horn at least once a week, for eight 

 months of the year. From Lyndhurst or Brockenhurst you 

 may ride to any point in little over the hour; while Stony 

 Cross, a village centre of the higher ground, is, so to speak, but 

 a stone's throw from Ocknell Pond, whereat on Monday was 

 held the last meet of the season. 



Morning had broken in a rainstorm ; but midday was 

 wrapped in sunshine, and wood and hill stood out freshened 



