DEVON AND SOMERSET. 69 



and takes in manv a Dartmoor peak and tor, 

 where bolder outlines and more uncompromising 

 features stand out against the southern sky. 



It is by way of Molland Moor and the 

 adjoining Anstey Common, that deer travel from 

 the well-known Hawkridge strongholds to their 

 favourite summer retreats in the neighbourhood 

 of North and South Molton and of Castle Hill. 

 Here it was that Mr. Sanders beheld his hrst 

 veritable stag (barring three spring deer taken 

 on the Quantocks) break covert from Lord 

 Clinton's woodland at Combe, and a right 

 royal stag he was moreover, with a curve of 

 thirty-five inches, a spread of twentv-nine 

 inches, and a girth of seven inches, while 

 the points numbered fourteen. Fourteen couple 

 of old hounds with seven couple of puppies 

 followed him after half an hour's law, and three 

 hours after the lay on this notable stag stood 

 at bay in the Haddeo at Steart Cottage and 

 was shortly taken. 



By the ford of the Haddeo where it spreads 

 below the arches of the old packhorse bridge at 

 Bury Village is a spot where many of the 

 hunting paths of Haddon converge, and here is 

 a favourite meeting place upon which the field 

 often gathers from different coigns of vantage 

 on the hilltops, and meets the pack as it comes 

 bustling down from the kennel at the harbourer's 

 cottage, in charge of huntsman or whipper-in, 



