14 DEEK-STALKING. 



present. Their frames were nurtured in climacteri- 

 cal exposures; their lungs were unoppressed to any 

 extent by the vitiated atmosphere of manufactories, 

 and unconsumed by the fiery ardours of fermented 

 liquors. The stalwart hunters and mighty men of 

 old knew nought of artificial light. The dawn and the 

 dusk, God's light and shadow, these were their 

 fashionable horologes ; the midday and twilight of 

 these were their fashionable periods of refection : and 

 thus, with breaths of morning dew and sinews of 

 iron, they prepared to take the field, and grasp the 

 " antlered monarch," if need were, in a hand to 

 horn grapple. Did 



" not old custom make this life more sweet 

 Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods 

 More free from peril than the envious court? 

 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 

 The seasons' difference ; as, the icy fang 

 And churlish chiding of the winter's wind." 



Already, at the Norman conquest, the red deer 

 had been hunted to the thinning of their species, and 

 our invaders did their utmost for its preservation and 

 increase. They exacted heavy fines from those who 

 trespassed on deer-enclosures, and life for life, if pre- 

 meditated, was the doom awarded to the biped who 

 slew the quadruped. Elaine gives a curious transla- 

 tion of a passage of Arrian's, relative to the stag- 

 hunting of the Anglo-Saxons. It is in the form of a 

 dialogue, and runs thus : 



"I am a hunter to one of the kings. How do 



