220 COVERT SIDE SKETCHES. 



the sport is, none will deny who have ever joined in it, and 

 very, very few, I think, are those who, having once tasted of its 

 fascinations, will not long again and again to renew the draught. 

 I know a gentleman who cannot he far from the three-score-and- 

 ten limit, who, having as fine a country as all England can show 

 within range of his own stable door, having once been there, 

 still makes his yearly pilgrimage to the wilds of Exmoor as each 

 autumn comes round. Mr. Bisset, who carries out the ancient 

 regime of the chase in all its purity, tufting for his deer, and 

 ever seeking to rouse and kill the " old stag," if possible (long 

 may he continue to do so !), has decided that a large fox-hound 

 is the animal most suited to his requirements, and here expe- 

 rience says that his judgment is sound. It may be urged that 

 a lighter hound would be less liable to injury from rocks and 

 hard ground, which these hounds are often called on to traverse, 

 and this is true ; but to set against it we have the advantage 

 that a large hound has in such a country as the Devon and 

 Somerset, when they come into strong old heather. Here the 

 small hound would be drowned and lost, while the five-and- 

 twenty inch one lashes over it almost with the ease of the deer 

 himself. If any of my readers doubt this, let them get into a 

 similar situation with a tall man and a short one, and they will 

 soon understand and appreciate it. I remember hearing of a 

 celebrated M.F.H., a very short man, who, in shooting, got 

 into a large area of old, stiff heather, and it was almost a 

 question whether he ever would get out again without ex- 

 traneous help. Now I fancy I hear some fox-hunter say, " We 

 hunt on moorlands, and there find our wildest and best foxes ; 

 but hounds from three to four and twenty inches answer our 

 purpose — why cannot they do for deer ? " 



Because the fox is a short-legged animal himself, and even in 

 a heathy country generally runs some track when in a hurry, 

 and would go into old, strong heather as into gorse, only to skulk 

 for a refuge — hence the difference ; the stag has to cross it, 

 and, if the hounds are to hunt him, they must follow. More- 



