BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



and rivers ; and then they being come to the place, doe lye 

 down on the ground till those foresaid scouts, which are called 

 the Tinckhell, do bring down the deer ; but as the proverb says 

 of a bad cooke, so these Tinckhell men doe lick their own fingers ; 

 for besides their bows and arrows, which they carry with them, 

 wee can heare now and then a harquebusse or musket goe off, 

 which they doe seldom discharge in vaine : then after we had 

 stayed three houres, or thereabouts, we might perceive the 

 deer appeare on the hills round about us (their heads making 

 a shew like a wood) which being followed close by the Tinckhell, 

 are chased down into the valley where wee lay ; then all the 

 valley on each side being waylaid with a hundred couple of 

 strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as occasion serves 

 upon the hearde of deere, that with dogs, gunnes, arrowes, 

 durks, and daggers, in the space of two houres, fourscore fat 

 deere were slaine, which after are disposed of some one way and 

 some another, twenty or thirty miles ; and more than enough 

 left for us to make merry withall at our rendevouse.' 



The ' strong Irish greyhounds ' were without doubt 

 Scottish deerhounds. 



Deer-stalking found favour with Scottish landowners and 

 others during the last quarter of the eighteenth century ; but 

 few men who lived elsewhere than near the forests took any 

 part in the sport. Captain Horatio Ross was one of the most 

 successful stalkers of the earlier days before the example of 

 the Prince Consort made deer-stalking the fashion. In the 

 season of 1828 he shot 87 deer to his own rifle on ' a large 

 range of shooting called Feloar,' which he rented from the Duke 

 of Athol : in 1837 he killed 75 head in Sutherlandshire : and 

 in 1851 his bag on Mar Forest was 118. Captain Ross's name 

 lives in history principally as that of a magnificent shot with 

 the rifle ; and it is worth noticing that in one day on Mar 

 Forest he had fourteen chances and killed thirteen deer. 



Scottish resident sportsmen introduced their English 

 friends to the game : and Squire Osbaldeston said that Mr. 

 William Coke ' was the first man that went in earnest deer- 



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