MY FIRST STAG AND SOME OTHERS 5 



half -whisper, ' Skut, skut !' (Shoot, shoot !) ; and there, 

 40 yards in front of ine, trotting gaily through trees 

 and marsh, was an active reddish-brown animal with 

 horns, obviously a stag the first wild red-deer I had 

 ever seen within point-blank range. 



The sporting Snider carbine of thirty years ago 

 was a handy weapon enough for short-range shooting, 

 and as I threw it to my shoulder, drew a bead well 

 forward on the stag, and pressed the trigger, I 

 remember thinking that Hans' advice to c shoot ' was 

 entirely unnecessary. For days past I had been 

 simply spoiling to shoot at anything warrantable 

 covered with hair. The next few moments will 

 never fade from my memory. The stag fell to the 

 shot, which had struck him high on the shoulder and 

 broken his spine. Hans rushed madly forward and 

 plunged his knife into the animal's throat, while I 

 gazed on the deer a six-point stag with, for the 

 first time, that feeling of satisfied desire which always 

 follows a hunter's kill, but which, logically, is out 

 of all apparent proportion to the actual object 

 attained. 



Only those who have experienced it can realize the 

 strength of this hunter's lust to kill the hunted, 

 though they may find it difficult to explain. It is 

 certain that no race of men possesses this desire 

 more strongly than the Anglo-Saxons of the British 

 Isles, though I have somewhere read that the North 

 American Red Indian chief, now more or less civilized 

 out of existence, and a certain class of Englishmen, 

 have usually possessed two attributes in common 

 namely, taciturnity under excitement, and a passion 

 for the chase. Let us take it that in our case this 

 passion is an inherited instinct which civilization 



