MASTERSHIP OF STAGHOUNDS 215 



the two branches of sport. Technically, the pursuit of 

 the tame stag is not sport, if we accept the definition 

 that sport consists in killing a wild animal by recognised 

 legitimate methods, such as are recognised in the 

 pursuit of the fox. 



Lord Coventry hunted the Royal Buckhounds and 

 the Croome Foxhounds in Worcestershire simul- 

 taneously, and also found time to attend Cross-Country 

 Race Meetings, such as Dunstall Park, from which he 

 was rarely an absentee. Thus, in his own person. 

 Lord Coventry is a living proof of the Catholicism of 

 sport. With such an example before us it would be a 

 redudio ad ahsnrdnni to contrast in any inimical spirit 

 the two branches of stag-hunting. 



THE WILD RED DEER 



Even such an enthusiastic Master of Foxhounds as 

 the late Duke of Beaufort has declared that few things 

 can compare with a run after a " warrantable " stag at 

 the stern of the Devon and Somerset Hounds, though 

 he adds, with humorous satire, that there is probably 

 nothing more difficult than to keep there. Exmoor is 

 the home of the red deer, and, though zoologists have 

 differed as to whether or not the red deer is indigenous 

 to English soil, it has been proved that he has lived on 

 Exmoor since the Norman Conquest, so that, if he 

 came as a visitor, he must have liked his quarters. 



It was during the Mastership of Mr. Fen wick Bisset, 

 in the autumn of 1879, that I was initiated into the 

 charms of following the Devon and Somerset Stag- 



