414 HUNTING. 



of all. We will then offer a few more remarks 

 upon them, as we have ranked them here. 



Since the staof has ceased to be drawn for, and 

 found in his native majesty, and hunted as a wild 

 animal, " stag hunting" has lost all its interest 

 with the sportsman ; and when we say that the 

 chase of no other animal is, after all, from first to 

 last, so full of interest as that of the stag, the 

 sportsman has some cause for regret. But wild- 

 stao- huntins: could not have remained one of the 

 popular diversions of Great Britain, for two suffi- 

 cient reasons. First, from the country being so 

 generally cleared of wood, there would have been a 

 great scarcity of game ; and, secondly, from the 

 circumstance of the stag being, by his nature, unfit 

 to be hunted during some of the months that sports- 

 men like to be in the field. The act of harbouring 

 the deer, however, must be considered as amongst 

 the very highest branches of the sportsman's art, 

 and one which none but a w^ell-practised sportsman 

 could perform. Neither was the hunting to death 

 of the wild stag by any means so easy a task as 

 might be supposed from the bulk of the animal, 

 which it must be proportionally difficult for him to 

 conceal. On the contrary, like the harts of Mean- 

 dros, flying from the terrible cry of Diana's hounds, 

 the " wise hart,'' or cerf sage as he is termed in 

 ancient hunting, knows how to foil hounds perhaps 

 as well as, or better than, most other wild animals, 

 and is allowed to consult the wind in his course 

 more than anv of them. It is also said of him. 



