140 STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



Unfortunately Jim was not always equally pains- 

 taking, and towards the end of his career became 

 slack and lazy ; too often the case with harbourers. 

 To the last, however, if properly roused (a work of 

 some difficulty), he could, in spite of age, harbour a 

 deer better than any one. He died in 1868, leaving no 

 one immediately qualified to succeed him in the office. 

 Very soon, however, one was found ; and the present 

 harbourer, Andrew Miles, took Jim's place in the cot- 

 tage on Haddon Hill, with far more deer to look after 

 than his predecessor had, and worthily maintains the 

 reputation of the office. The harbourer' s fee was and 

 is ^i for every stag; not too much if the work be 

 properly done, for the distances to be traversed are 

 frequently very great, and the skill required such as is 

 only to be gained by close attention and a real desire 

 to show sport. The writer cannot pretend to have ex- 

 hausted, even approximately, the intricacies of the art 

 of harbouring: there are signs in the bending of a twig 

 or the cropping of a leaf, from which one experienced 

 in woodcraft can gather information, though probably 

 he could not tell you why. There is a strange in- 

 stinct in such things which even those possessed thereof 

 cannot explain ; an instinct which constitutes the mas- 

 tery of every art from strategy to rat-catching. 



