

VARIETIES OF THE DOG. 



87 



The stag-hounds are now a part of the regular Crown establishment. 

 The royal kennel is situated upon Ascot Heath, about six miles from 

 Windsor. At the distance of a mile from the kennel is Swinley Lodge, 

 r.he official residence of the Master of the Stag-hounds. 



The stag-hound is a beautiful animal. He is distinguished from the 

 fox-hound by the apparent broadness and shortness of his head, his longer 

 cheek, his straighter hock, his wider thigh and deeper chest, and better 

 feathered and more beautifully arched tail. His appearance indicates 

 strength and stoutness, in which indeed he is unequalled, and he has suffi- 

 cient speed to render it difficult for the best horses long to keep pace with 

 him ; while, as is necessary, when the distance between the footmarks of 

 the deer is considered, his scent is most exquisite. He is far seldomer 

 at fault than any other hound except the blood-hound, and rarely fails of 

 running down his game. 



Of the stoutness of this dog, the following anecdotes will be a sufficient 

 illustration. A deer, in the spring of 1822, was turned out before the 

 Earl of Derby's hounds at Hayes Common. The chace was continued 

 nearly four hours without a check, when, being almost run down, the ani- 

 mal took refuge in some outhouses near Speldhurst in Kent, more than 

 forty miles across the country, and having actually run more than fifty miles. 

 Nearly twenty horses died in the field, or in consequence of the severity 

 of the chace. 



A stag was turned out at Wingfield Park, in Northumberland. The 

 whole pack, with the exception of two hounds, was, after a long run, 

 thrown out. The stag returned to his accustomed haunt, and, as his last 

 effort, leaped the wall of the park, and lay down and died. One of the 

 hounds, unable to dear the wall, fell and expired, and the other was found 

 dead at a little distance. They had run about forty miles. 



When the stag first hears the cry of the hounds, he runs with the swift- 

 ness of the wind, and continues to run as long as any sound of his pursuers 

 can be distinguished. That having ceased, he pauses and looks carefully 

 around him ; but before he can determine what course to pursue the cry of 

 the pack again forces itself upon his attention. Once more he darts away, 

 and after a while again pauses. His strength perhaps begins to fail, and 

 he has recourse to stratagem in order to escape. He practises the doubling 

 and the crossing of the fox or the hare. This being useless, he attempts 

 to escape by plunging into some lake or river that happens to lie in his 

 way, and when, at last, every attempt to escape proves abortive, he boldly 

 faces his pursuers, and attacks the first dog or man who approaches him. a 



a The late Lord Orford reduced four 

 stags to so perfect a degree of submission, 

 that, in his short excursions, he used to 

 drive them in a phaeton made for the 

 purpose. He was one day exercising 

 his singular and beautiful steeds in the 

 neighbourhood of Newmarket, when their 

 ears were saluted with the unwelcome cry 

 of a pack of hounds, which, crossing the 

 road in their rear, had caught the scent, and 

 leaving their original object of pursuit, 

 were now in rapid chace of the frightened 

 stags. In vain his grooms exerted them- 



selves to the utmost, the terrified animals 

 bounded away with the swiftness of light- 

 ning, and entered Newmarket at full 

 speed. They made immediately for the 

 Ram Inn, to which his lordship was in 

 the habit of driving, and, having fortu- 

 nately entered the yard without any acci- 

 dent, the stable-keepers huddled his lord- 

 ship, the phaeton, and the deer into a large 

 barn, just in time to save them from the 

 hounds, who came into the yard in full 

 ciy a few seconds afterwards. Annals of 

 Sporting, vol. iii. 1823. 



