WILD STAG-HUNTING. 205 



the smothered gi'owl, that tells he is pulled down quickly, and 

 the huntsman's knife is sharp and sure, well and good. Occa- 

 sionally — nay, often — the stag takes to the cliffs and goes out to 

 sea, when a boat generally tows him in either to Lynmouth, 

 Porlock, or Minehead, and he is killed at once." 



Stag-hunting comjDrises some of the characteristics of every 

 other kind of chase, and yet is essentially different from them 

 all. For instance, hounds must at one time run their hardest 

 to bring him to bay ; at another, hunt as patiently as harriers, 

 and own the line on dry rocks or roads, then take the water 

 like otter-hounds ; and, moreover, must be handy to stop and 

 turn when the hunted deer forces a younger one to take his 

 place; thus it is the most perfect of any hunting that can 

 be seen, as it comprises so many different styles of chase in 

 one, and it only wants hounds to press to head to make it 

 perfect. But I suppose nothing in this world ever was 

 or will be quite perfection. Whyte Melville, in " Katerfelto," 

 says,— 



" One notable peculiarity of this wild stag-hunting of the 

 West is the impossibility of calculating on the endurance of a 

 red deer. A light-going hart, four or five years old, unencum- 

 bered by flesh, and with the elasticity of youth in every limb, 

 can naturally skim the surface of his native wastes like a 

 creature with wings ; but it is strange that on occasion, though 

 rarely, a stag should be found, with branching antlers to prove 

 his maturity, and broad, well-furnished back, to denote his 

 weight, that can yet stand before a pack of hounds toiling after 

 him, at steady three-quarters' speed, over every kind of ground, 

 for twenty, and even thirty, miles on end. We can gauge to a 

 nicety the lasting qualities of our horse — we have a slirewd 

 guess at about what stage of the proceedings even such staunch 

 hounds as Tancred and Tarquin must begin to flag ; but the 

 powers of a hunted stag defy speculation, or, as old Eed Rube 

 observed in his more sober and reflective moments, ' 'Tis a 

 creatur three parts contrairiness and only a quarter venison. 



