38 STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



From 1818 to 1824 the pack was kept by Mr. 

 Stucley Lucas of Baronsdown, and the hunting con- 

 tinued as heretofore ; but for reasons which the 

 chroniclers of the period were unwilling to record 

 (whence' it is probably well that they are forgotten) 

 things did not prosper ; and the hounds were finally 

 sold in 1825, and left the country, never to return. 



Such was the end of this renowned pack — the last 

 of the true staghounds in England. " The hills and 

 woods of Devon and Somerset will never again ring 

 to the melody of such a pack," writes Dr. Collyns 

 in his description thereof; and beyond all doubt its 

 departure marked the 'close of the good old days of 

 stag-hunting. It is curious the history of its doings 

 should have found no record at the hands of the 

 various masters ; but it seems that none exists except 

 the Castle Hill MS. already mentioned. The de- 

 ficiency is, however, filled up by a short journal kept by 

 a dear lover of the sport, one John Boyse, parson of 

 Hawkridge and Withypool, from whence Dr. Collyns 

 drew his account of the sport between 1780 and 1825. 

 There are few now living that remember the said John. 

 Boyse ; but his portrait still exists, together with that 

 of the master, in a painting of a stag at bay, taken 

 when the pack was kept at Baronsdown. John was a 



