48 STAG- HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



deer had been scattered by the constant raids of deer- 

 stealers, for within the twenty-five days Mr. Bisset had 

 found deer in the North Molton, Brendon, Dulverton, 

 and Horner covers. The first beginnings of the Devon 

 and Somerset staghounds are rather ridiculous reading 

 at this distance of time, but, as Mr. Bisset justly re- 

 marks, " master, men, and hounds were all new to 

 their work," and, to add to the confusion, when the 

 master " knew too little there were many who knew 

 too much." There was, further, only one trustworthy 

 harbourer in the country — one Jim Blackmore, of Had- 

 don, a noted character In his own province, of whom* 

 more hereafter. On one day a volunteer harbourer at 

 Slowly Wood said he knew a splendid stag with *' six 

 on top," to be lying In the cover, but on being roused 

 the " splendid stag" turned out to be a fallow buck. 

 Still worse was It on another day to find a hind, that 

 had honestly been run to a standstill, stolen just before 

 the hounds ran into her, and "salted in" at a neigh- 

 bouring cottage. Perhaps worst of all was the dis- 

 covery that the new pack gave way to the vice which, 

 for some reason or another, has always peculiarly beset 

 the staghounds from the earliest times — that of sheep- 

 killing. A deer had been run from the forest over the 

 " chains," — that Is to say, the worst tract of ground In 



