146 ROE -HUNTING. 



blunders from beginning to end. The common way of 

 proceeding is, to place half-a-dozen gentlemen with their 

 guns in the passes, and then, with a host of beaters and 

 dogs, to scour the plantations, always commencing at the 

 windward side, where the roes are sure to be found. I 

 confess I have no great liking to this plan ; the planta- 

 tions are thoroughly disturbed, almost every head of game 

 being driven out ; and I never saw a party of this kind 

 succeed much better than when one or two experienced 

 roe-hunters had the whole sport to themselves.* 



A description of one of these noisy parties will, with a 

 few exceptions, apply to all. We will suppose the sports- 

 men snugly in their passes, while the beaters and dogs 

 are in full hoot and howl in the wood below : one man 

 allows the roe to slip by unobserved, until it is almost 

 out of reach, then fires his buck-shot, perhaps wounding 

 his game, which the dogs are unable to run down ; another 

 never sees it at all ; a third shows himself in the pass, and 

 so throws away his chance ; and I have even know T n two 

 instances of our brethren from the south leaving their 

 posts for a time to take a comfortable luncheon their 

 love of a roe-pasty prevailing over their love of the chase. 



* The roe is occasionally stalked, and shot with the rifle, and I have 

 heard it alleged that it is thus raised to the dignity of a deer, whereas 

 the common method of buck-shot degrades it to the level of a hare. 

 Having several times tried this experiment, I may safely pronounce it 

 a most wretched burlesque upon deer-stalking. Roes almost always 

 confine themselves to the woods, and although, by peeping round 

 corners and openings in the plantations, you may sometimes get a good 

 rifle-shot, yet you are much more apt to come upon them quite within 



