52 HUNTING, 



terms with their quarry. To attempt to crawl down a stag, 

 unless he be very fat and heavy, is to attempt an impossibility. 

 Staghounds at fault ought not to be lifted to a distant halloo 

 unless the huntsman has good reason for depending upon it ; 

 for if a mistake should be made, and hounds laid on a fresh 

 line, neither deer will be accounted for. Such blunders will 

 surely promote an incurable slackness, for the very best hounds 

 will not bear being deceived frequently. If they cannot own 

 the line, little or no harm can arise from their being lifted as 

 far as the huntsman may think fit for the purpose of recovering 

 it. When the stag is brought to bay, old hounds will not attack 

 him. They appear to know perfectly well that the coup de grace 

 will be delivered by human hands, and that when they have 

 run him to bay their work is done. 



The intelligence of the staghound is proportionate to his 

 scenting powers. It is difficult to believe that in the excite- 

 ment of the chase he is able to distinguish by his nose be- 

 tween a hind and a stag, and between an old deer and a young 

 one. Nevertheless, during a single season he frequently de- 

 monstrates his ability to do so. 



As the climate of the Exmoor is very severe during the 

 winter and spring, and as the habit of the deer to ' take soil 7 

 at all seasons of the year is universal, and entails upon the 

 hounds frequent immersion, the temperature of the kennel 

 lodging-room may be raised by artificial means, which the 

 stove in the boiling-house will economically supply. 1 That 

 huntsmen, like poets, 'are bom and not made,' is a maxim 

 that few sportsmen will have the temerity to dispute. A good 

 training will undoubtedly give a man a knowledge of the most 

 approved system of handling a pack of hounds ; but it will 

 never take the place of that venatic instinct with which some 

 men are endowed. 



1 Some authorities think that this system produces rheumatism in hounds, 

 and is therefore to be avoided to souse them well in warm water when they 

 are taken home, and rub them dry with a horsehair glove, is the better plan. 

 Artificial heat is only necessary if they have been swimming about in cold 

 weather. 



