'66 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



inaptly told that on being lent Fortescue's 

 beautiful " Story of a Red Deer," he remarked 

 that he " didn't think much of it as there was 

 nothing in it that he hadn't known all his life!" 



Eastward of Haddon, and separated from it 

 by a mile of wild common land, lies a romantic 

 and sheltered glen, running north and south and 

 known as Bittescombe, Here deer find another 

 safe harbour, under the protection of Sir John 

 Ferguson Davie, whose snug woodlands beside 

 the Lupley Water are always tenanted by them. 

 Lying as it does in a line with the Chipstable 

 and Huish Cleave coverts, which form the eastern- 

 most sanctuarv, Bittescombe often has hounds 

 running across it from east to west and vice 

 versa, and its steep descent amongst fallen tree 

 stems and gnarled and twisted roots often strikes 

 terror to the heart of the unaccustomed or 

 nervous pursuer. 



Very different from the cramped enclosures 

 of Chipstable and its vicinitv is the fair open 

 expanse of Holland Moor where the heather 

 lies east and west for hundreds of acres in free 

 untrammelled sweep, and where hounds can drive 

 and fling unchecked from Anstey Barrows to 

 Twitchen village. No wider landscape or one 

 more beautiful is to be seen in all North 

 Devon, than is commanded by this, the southern- 

 most reach of Exmoor, from whence in a 

 bird's-eye view, the eye sweeps nearly all Devon, 



