BUCK-HUNTING. 243 



huntsmen call ' hunting at force.' When he is at liberty, he 

 will break forth his chase into the winde, sometimes four, five, 

 and six miles forthright ; nay, I have myself followed a stag 

 better than ten miles from the place of his running to the place 

 of his death, besides all his windings, turnings, and cross- 

 passages. The time of the year for these chases is from the 

 middle of May to the middle of September." Again, " The 

 horses which are aptest and best to be employed in this chase is 

 the Barbary jennet, or light-made English gelding, being of 

 middle stature." He also observes that, " as stag-hunting is in 

 season between April and September, and is most violent and 

 swift when the sun is hottest and the ground hard, it is not fit 

 for training young horses ;" and says, " There was a certain race 

 of little horses in Scotland, called Galway nags (probably 

 Galloway), which he had seen hunt the buck exceeding weH, 

 endured the chase with great courage, and the hard earth without 

 lameness, better than horses of greater puissance and strength." 

 In these quotations it is worthy of remark that Gervase 

 Markham speaks of " the bucke or stag," placing the smaller 

 and less noble deer before the other, from which we may fairly 

 infer that the most common chase of the two in his time was 

 that of the buck rather than the stag ; and no doubt it was, for 

 many a nobleman and country gentleman must have had a chase 

 where fallow deer were to be found, whereas the forests in which 

 the red deer made their abode were in the hands of kings and 

 princes. It is also well to note that, although he speaks of 

 hunting both four, five, or six miles from the place where they 

 were found, in mentioning ten miles as a long chase, he asserts 

 it to have been after a stag. This difiference would, even in the 

 present day, give a very fair inference of the powers of the two 

 animals. It shows also that they were hunted with packs of 

 hounds rather than coursed with deer greyhounds, as they could 

 not have stood before the latter, running by sight for that 

 distance. Good Queen Bess, we know, was very partial to 

 seeing deer pulled doAvn in a park or paddock with greyhounds ; 



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