DEER 



99 



I give this part of the business credit for many practical 

 and sentimental advantages — but, after all, the run is ' the 

 true pathos and sublime ' of the game. Yet, given that your 

 deer is as fit as a fighting man, and as great a votary of his 

 profession as a game-cock, he requires sympathetic handling. 

 A deer must not be hunted as you hunt a fox. Catch- 

 ing him as soon as possible is just what you do not v^^ant 

 to do. The huntsman of a pack of staghounds must dis- 

 regard opportunities which are often hurled at his head. 

 No healthy-minded fox-catcher ever gives a fox a chance. 

 He would as soon think of casting forward. But to press 

 home your advantages with a deer means that you run 

 great risks of bewildering and so spoiling him, or even 

 killing him. In any case, you will disappoint an eager field by 

 depriving them of what they conceive to be their full rights ; 

 that is, plenty of galloping, jumping, and tumbling about. 

 Moreover, it is well to bear in mind that a deer is quite as 

 easily killed by over-driving at the beginning of a run, before 

 he has had time to take his bearings, asat the end. ' Nimrod,' 

 indeed, disapproved of bursting a fox. A celebrated exponent 

 of this operation was Mr. Thomas Smith, of whom an admirer 

 said, ' If I were a fox I'd sooner have a pack uf hounds behind 

 me than Tom Smith with a stick in his hand.' In reference 

 to him, ' Nimrod,' in his hunting reminiscences, says : ' What 

 is called bursting a fox, and hunting him to death, are very 

 different operations, and on this subject I can state an 

 incident to the point which I witnessed with Lord Kintore's 

 hounds in Scotland. We had run a fox about twenty 

 minutes into a small cover, whence we viewed him break- 

 ing away again. " Pray help Joe to stop the hounds," said 

 Lord Kintore to me, blowing his horn at the time. " Let 

 him get well away, and we shall have a run." He did get 

 well away with the body of the pack on his line, and the 

 result was a beautiful fifty minutes. I call this fox-hunt- 



