76 FARLEY, 1919 



the deer must have had a very lean time of it at 

 the critical period of horn-growing. 



On Farley it was a heart-breaking year, as not 

 only were the stags very poor, but also the hinds 

 were very backward, and so the stags were quite 

 remarkably late in coming after them; no roaring 

 was heard on Farley till the 7th of October, a 

 fortnight later than usual, and no stag was even 

 seen till the 27th of September, except for the 

 chance visitors the beginning of that month which 

 furnished us with our first stalk I should rather 

 say stumble ! I was at breakfast on the 5th of 

 September when a message was brought to me 

 from Stone that four stags had been seen on the 

 West Hill the previous evening two of them 

 clean, two still in the velvet, and all quite shoot- 

 able beasts. Would we come up as soon as possible ? 

 Of course we would; and the Faithful One and I 

 were soon in the car and up on Farley in a few 

 minutes, where we got the welcome news that 

 our visitors were still at home. We at once made 

 tracks for the spying rock where we made a 

 careful spy of the West Hill, but our friends were 

 nowhere to be seen ; however, Stone was quite sure 

 they had not left the ground, so we pushed on till 

 we came to the ravine, but still no signs of any 

 stags, so we clambered up the ravine and on 

 round the West Hill, and were beginning to feel 

 an awful qualm that they had given us the slip, 

 when all of a sudden John was flat on his face, 



