40 STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



one of the last links between the old times and the new. 

 He saw his first stag killed in 1814 under the master- 

 ship of the first Earl Fortescue ; he saw his last stag 

 killed some seventy years later under a great-grand- 

 son of the above — the present master — a feat whereof 

 he was not a little proud. It was from him that the 

 present generation received the oral traditions of stag- 

 hunting in its palmiest days ; and hence it is hardly too 

 much to say that two parsons, John Boyse and John 

 Russell — the one in his manuscript, the other in the 

 flesh — alone have preserved for us the history of the 

 old regime ^Mxm^ the hundred years 1 780 — 1880. There 

 is, however, a third name, perhaps better known than 

 either of the others in connection with the chronicles of 

 stag-hunting, that of Charles Palk Collyns, surgeon, of 

 Dulverton, for forty-seven years of the three score and 

 ten during which he lived the most enthusiastic of 

 stag-hunters. He was further the author of " The 

 Chase of the Wild Red Deer," a book which is still 

 the greatest authority on all matters touching the 

 sport. 



The last survivor was, as we have said, Parson John 

 Russell. There are still one or two left, notably Mr. 

 Knight, of Simonsbath, and Mr. Baker, of Lynton, 

 who as boys rode a run with the old pack ; still a select 



