312 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



sight, pursued by a plodding tufter or two 

 through the drifting wreaths of wind swept rain. 

 Thoroughly under control as the staghounds 

 are, and well accustomed to being stopped over 

 and over again in the course of a day's hunting, 

 they will prove disobedient to the casual stranger, 

 and after stopping for a moment will slip past 

 his horse and continue their hunt rejoicing. 



More often than not it proves impossible to 

 get the whole pack back to kennel at the end of 

 a day's hunting, but with an unerring instinct the 

 great hounds, thanks to their careful summer train- 

 ing, seldom fail to retrace the weary miles to the 

 kennel gates before morning. When new hounds 

 come to Exford in the course of the summer 

 reconstitution of the pack, they sometimes meet 

 with adventures, and only as lately as the 

 summer of 1901 a hound from the sale of the 

 Hon. L. J. Bathurst's pack, on being let out by 

 accident from Exford made her way in the 

 course of one night to her old kennels at 

 Eggesford. 



A few seasons earlier a new hound escaped at 

 Dulverton station and becoming quite uncatchable 

 wandered about the countrv until he had to be 

 shot. A familiar sight on all hunting days is 

 that of the whipper-in returning towards the 

 kennel to which the pack is for the time 

 consigned with a few stray tufters following at 

 his horse's heels. These have perhaps been 



