DEVON AND SOMERSET. 9 



harm can be done by his presence, and in this 

 as in some other matters he will find it a vast 

 assistance if he can enlist the good offices of 

 one of those local sportsmen, and they are not 

 numerous, who really know their way over the 

 country, and at the same time understand what 

 hounds are doing and what the huntsman's object 

 is likelv to be. 



It is indeed surprising at how great a distance 

 the slightest sign will be read aright by the 

 trained evesight of such a pilot, or from how far 

 his practised ear will detect the faint echo of the 

 horn amongst the dense green woodlands, while 

 a print in the soil of a bridle-path or a splash 

 on a waterside stone will convey to him no end 

 of useful information. 



When the tufting has ended and the master's 

 horn has blown the signal that lets loose the 

 eager pack, he will take care to get as near as 

 he can to the actual scene of the lav on, no easy 

 matter amongst a hurrying August held. He will 

 recognise, if the present volume should reach 

 his hands, some of the scenes which met his 

 interested gaze in the last autumn of the nine- 

 teenth century : the kennelling of the pack, the 

 trotting out to draw with the tufters, the stopping 

 of the same, the bringing on of the pack, and 

 the pursuit of it by himself and others over 

 undulating plains of heath, with steep hillside 

 paths and woodland rides to follow. 



