WILD STAG-HUNTING. 191 



First, the stag was limited in spring, and the buck about Mid- 

 summer. Gervase Markham also says, in his " Cavalrie," 

 printed in 1616, in speaking of the chase of the stag or buck 

 as the best for training horses, " The time of the year for these 

 chases is from the middle of iNIay to the middle of September." 

 I take the time of year in which it can be followed as one of 

 the great recommendations of stag-hunting, especially in the 

 jDresent age, when one and all are accustomed to look upon 

 August and September as especially the holiday months of the 

 year. There are many professional men who can scarcely 

 snatch a day from business during the periods when fox and 

 hare-hunting are in perfection, who at this time can and do make 

 holiday, and by wending their steps to the west are enabled 

 to get an amount of healthy excitement, and horse exercise 

 thrown in, which, save for stag-hunting, would be denied them. 

 I was talking only during the present season to a solicitor, one 

 of a large firm in London, who said, " I am very fond of hunting, 

 and I profess to hunt one day a week at least ; but I find 

 generally that if I have had a dozen days with hounds by the 

 end of the season, I am lucky." A six weeks' trip to Dunster, 

 Minehead, or Dulverton, would give him that with stag-hounds 

 alone. Again, take the invalid : there are numbers fond of 

 hunting who cannot bear the cold winds of an English winter 

 and spring, but they may revel in the autumn months amidst 

 the beauties of Cloutsham Ball and Porlock Bay, by exercising 

 a little caution, without fear of injury to their health, and then 

 be off and away to warmer climes ere November brings its frosts 

 and fogs. Neither must we forget the beauty of the scenes 

 amidst which the wild deer makes his home. The red stag is 

 no child of civilization ; you cannot cater for his taste by making 

 a trim gorse covert in the corner of a pasture. He must havQ 

 forest, heath, rock, and hill, if you are to lure him as a tenant. 

 In fact, during the time he is in season, hunting, on account of 

 damage to the crops, could not be carried on, save in a country 

 the greater portion of which had not been reclaimed from a state 



