DEER-STALKING. 177 



for there is nothing- more fatiguing than petrifaction 

 of this kind. When he next looks at you, he 

 won't find out the difference in your shape provided 

 only you anticipate the turn of his head, and are 

 not too late in becoming stone again. With clothes 

 of the right colour I have sat or lain in the open 

 within twenty yards of deer in this way for some 

 minutes, undetected. I have several of these anxious 

 and muscle-trying dissimulations to go through 

 during this irksome trial. The big stag seems to 

 have no care for himself, and hardly ever takes 

 the trouble to look up from his feeding, but his 

 younger and smaller friends — one especially — how 

 I hated him ! — were constantly turning suspicious 

 glances in my direction before I at last gained the 

 longed-for shelter of some rocky broken ground, 

 whence if I could only reach it, I felt sure of a 

 good chance. 



After the luxury of " taking the kink out of 

 my back," by changing the prone veluti pecoi'a 

 attitude for that natural to dignified man, 1 



N 



