16 DEER-STALKING. 



all but extirpated many of the noblest denizens of the 

 forest. Boars, bears, wolves, antelopes, beavers, 

 these with us, at length, and at different periods, be- 

 came extinct. The stag, or hart, or red deer, re- 

 ceded as population advanced; the circle of its 

 retreats became narrower and narrower, until it 

 sprung upwards to the inaccessible fortresses of the 

 mountains ; and there intrenched, it appeared to have 

 become at once fierce, shy, and wary. This, at 

 times, in the Scotch holds, or the wild western tracts 

 of Ireland, would turn at bay, like the Roman in the 

 capitol, upon its pursuers, or leaping agilely beyond 

 their reach, roar out its challenge and defiance. This 

 description will not appear exaggerated to those who 

 are versed in the old border-tales of chivalry, like the 

 late lamented Sir Walter Scott, whose " Lady of the 

 Lake " embodies the gist of many of them in its vividly 

 splendid and graphic portraitures of the red deer and 

 its haunts. Still less will it be found to vary from 

 fidelity by the enthusiastic deer-stalker who has con- 

 quered the difficulties of the sport, or who glories in 

 them, and who finds in the stag a not less noble 

 though a less dangerous foe than the Highlander of 

 old. A Scot, of the time of Hemy the Eighth, thus 

 explained to that monarch the various uses besides 

 food for which the creature served : " We go a hunt- 

 ing, and after that we have slain red deer, we flay off 

 the skin bye and bye, and setting of our barefoot on 

 the inside thereof, for want of cunning shoemakers, 

 we play the cobbler, compassing and measuring so 



