DEVON AND SOMERSET. 249 



not without its stumbling blocks in the shape 

 of constant ant-hills, and so the chase passes 

 by, much as it may have done on any autumn 

 afternoon since the days of the Saxons, with 

 the same old oaks looking down upon the 

 sport and the romantic pile cf Dunster Castle 

 crowning the landscape. Probably the music 

 of the chase has altered not a little, just as 

 its pace has much increased, even since times, 

 which are onlv comparatively historic ; the 

 short straight horn of to-day has succeeded 

 the longer and more musical instrument of 

 former times, the hounds too have little to say 

 until their great red quarry turns to bay, whereas 

 the hounds that worked these happy hunting 

 grounds before them in the ages long gone 

 by had tuneful throats and used them as St. 

 Hubert would have liked, but the hunting cries 

 and view halloas remain much the same, though 

 Norman French no longer is the language of 

 the hunter, still in hunting cries there are faint 

 traces which may serve to remind us that our 

 forbears chased the noble deer for many a 

 centurv before the odorous fox was thought 

 worth hunting. 



A good voice is always a desirable possession 

 in a huntsman or whip, but nowhere perhaps 

 is it more necessary than in the deep "vvoods and 

 wild combes which the deer affect, and nowhere 

 can the clear strains of a trained throat be heard 



