256 COVERT-STDE SKETCHES. 



more of the character of wild deer hunting, as the animal 

 hunted has a point or home for which he is determined 

 to make, and will use all his art and cunning to get there. 

 But, after all, it is a poor imitation, as, in the first place, you 

 know when you turn him out where you will in all probability 

 go, and can regulate the length of your run by the distance 

 from it at which he is enlarged, and the amount of law allowed. 

 Some masters do not allow the hounds to be stopped, but run 

 down their deer as quickly as they can. "Where this is the 

 case, it adds much to the dash and beauty of the sport. I 

 have seen it stated, in a book on " Rural Sports " of some 

 standing, that when once the hounds are laid on, the chase of 

 the carted deer is conducted on exactly the same principles as 

 that of the wild one. To this I altogether demur, and some 

 little experience in both branches of sport enables me to say 

 that they widely differ from each other in every essential 

 point. In fact, the turned-out deer, save and except " taking 

 soil," has few, if any, of the shifts to which the wild one 

 resorts, and the huntsman can scarcely be wrong, when free 

 from water, in making a forward cast. As my readers already 

 know, this is by no means the case in wild hunting, where 

 the old stag has frequently found another to supply his place, 

 he all the time being, as he thinks, safe and snug in the rear 

 of those who are seeking his destruction. Again, compare the 

 sight of a warrantable deer, with all his rights, clearing the 

 covert's bounds into the open, and, having altered his slinging 

 trot into a stately gallop, head and antlers well laid back, and 

 looking the monarch of the waste, as he is, with the semi-tame 

 deer, bereft of all his honours, bundled from a cart, and, as I 

 have seen before now, ridden at, and whipped along like a 

 donkey for the first quarter of a mile, by some too zealous 

 sportsman, who is " afraid he won't run." Shades of JS'imrod 

 protect me from such a sight again ! Then the take, which at 

 its best, taking place in some brook or burn, is but a parody on 

 the scene of a wild deer brought to bay ; but what shall we 



