DEVON AND SOMERSET. 365 



into play in such cases, involves many diffi- 

 culties which do not immediately strike the 

 ordinary critic. With some French packs it is 

 done, but the hounds do not always escape 

 unharmed ; then too to make good practice 

 with a shaking hand at the end of an exciting 

 chase must be by no means easy, and last 

 but not least the employment of firearms in 

 connection with deer in a country where 

 they are so scrupulously preserved from the 

 effect of villainous salt-petre would be repug- 

 nant in the highest degree to the large 

 majority of those by whose goodwill they 

 survive in their present state, and are main- 

 tained to be a worthy ornament of their 

 native counties. 



Level ground is very scarce in the country 

 where these scenes are laid, up or down hill 

 is the rule all day throughout the average run, 

 and wherever the camera points, the figures it 

 focusses are sure to be standing or moving on 

 a slope of greater or less degree, or on a 

 surface covered with irregularities. The deer 

 know well how easily the undulations of the 

 hill tops will hide them from the view of 

 human beings, and they will quickly put a 

 swell of the ground between themselves and 

 any single horseman, but when the hills are 

 dotted all over with pursuers they have nothing 

 for it but to gallop right away. 



