BUCK-HUNTING. 251 



pity one capable of showing sport should be lost to us ; and as 

 the roebuck is in season from Easter to Christmas, and we learn 

 from the description of the above chase that he runs a good 

 deal over heath, there is no reason why he should not give us 

 an extension of the hunting season at each end by a week or 

 two, though, of course, with the country so cultivated as it is 

 now, the chase could only be indulged in before corn was high 

 enough to receive injury, and again after harvest. As Mr. 

 Farquharson appears to have had such a good day, we may yet 

 see the sport revived ; and if he has any of the spirit of his 

 grandfather in him, which I should augur from "Harkaway's" 

 description, if he takes it up, it will be more than ordinary 

 trouble and disappointment which will make him relinquish 

 the pursuit. 



Note. — Since this book has been going through the press I have become 

 aware that Mr. Thomas Lyon Thurlow, of Baynard's Park, between Guild- 

 ford and Horsham, Sussex, hunts bucks with a pack of old English hounds in 

 rather a peculiar manner. The method is this. In the autumn a certain 

 number of bucks are driven from the park into the adjoining coverts and 

 there allowed to run wild. These Mr. Thurlow finds with his hounds, runs 

 down, and kills. He considers the black Norwegian bucks the stoutest, 

 and told me that they would show more sport than a stag, and were far 

 more difficult to hunt, a point he has ample opportunity of ascertaining, as 

 he keeps red deer also. One last season took them to Petworth and back 

 again, showing a four hours' run, and then killed a hound with a blow of 

 his hoof. The hounds are now of large size, black-and-tan in colour, and 

 very like bloodhounds in their general appearance, but of lighter frame and 

 less throat. They came originally from Scotland, where they were used to 

 hunt deer, and their ancestors, of which Mr. Thurlow showed a picture, 

 were pied, but quite different from fox-hounds in appearance. They will 

 hunt a very low scent, and one bitch was pointed out to me who would 

 carry the line along the bottom of a brook as well as on dry land. Last 

 season many of the pack were disabled through following their deer over 

 the Ewherst stone-quai-ries when running hard — about eighty feet deep. 

 Strange to say, none were killed outright, and the deer, although stunned, 

 recovered himself, and was taken at Clandon I^ark, where his life was 

 spared, and he is alive there at this time. 



