198 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



Lis covert. Neither hare nor fox ever tries so many wiles to 

 escape his pursuers as a stag, and often he will range the covert 

 until not another deer is left in it ; run the streams and ' soil ' 

 again and again before making up his mind to set his head over 

 the open. This, of course, gives both hounds and huntsman a 

 great deal of work, for it is only by keeping constantly at him, 

 when once on his legs, that this end can be achieved. How- 

 ever, when he has made up his mind to go, he is not easily 

 ' blanched,' and, moreover, he has a point to make, and make it 

 he will ; so, we know, will the fox, but he is not nearly so bold 

 in doing it as the stag. It will be seen that drawing for a fox 

 and tufting for a deer is a totally dissimilar affair, and no com- 

 parison can, in our estimation, be instituted between them. 

 The huntsman to fox- hounds simply draws the most likely 

 places with his whole pack, hunts the first fox he hnds, as a 

 rule (unless a brace break at once), and kills him, if he can. 

 The stag-hunter (his d'3er having previously been harboured in 

 a particular covert) takes a few hounds, four or five couple 

 generally, and from the covert, perhaps full of other deer, and 

 often of very great extent, singles and forces into the open the 



And other signes and tokens do I tell. 



To make them hope the Hart may like them well. 



Then they command that I the wine should taste. 



So biddes mine Art, and so my throat 1 baste. 



The dinner doue, I go straightwayes againe, 



Vnto my markes, and shew my master plaine. 



Then put my Hound vpon the view to drawe, 



And rowse the Hart out of his layre by lawe. 



gamsters all, a little by your leaue, 



Can you such ioyes in trifling games conceaue ?'* 



There is a capital account of the harbourer's duties in modern times in 

 Dr. CoUyns's book on " The Chase of the Wild Red Deer in Devon and 

 Somerset," and Whyte Melville's " Katerfelto," where Red Rube the 

 Harbourer is a perfect sketch. In the present day the lyme-hound is not 

 used, and the harbourer depends on his own knowledge of woodcraft and 

 habits of the animal he is in pursuit of. 



