THE STAG. 55 



whilst many of the others weighed no less than 5 cwt. In 

 1762 Maximilian von Lichtenstein shot in Saxony a stag 

 weighing 7 cwt. 95 lbs ; and in 1723 Count Stolberg one 

 near Agnesdorf weighing 910 lbs.* And even in later 

 times — in our own day — there were still enough to 

 afford good sport to those who had the opportunity of 

 enjoying it. In 1844 the present reigning duke of 

 Saxe-Coburg-Grotha shot 75 stags, and 105 deer. The 

 late Prince Leiningen had, as he told me, shot 700 stags 

 in his life. He once in fourteen days shot 2 of 16, 

 5 of 14, and 17 of 10 and 12 points each. Count Erbach 

 had shot near 1,000 in his day. 



The delight felt in all that belonged to wood-craft 

 was, in many cases, not to be impaired by ill fortune or 

 even imprisonment. Landgrave Philip of Hesse, when 

 far away in captivity, was ever occupied in thought with 

 the chase and the preservation of the deer. In all his 

 letters written to those at home the same admonition 

 recurs : " Take thought for the forests and the deer; see 



* The portraits of such famous stags were generally taken ; and in 

 many old hunting seats in Germany, in Erbach, Gotha, Moritzburg 

 they are carefully preserved as interesting memorials of the past. A 

 collection of engravings by Eiidinger gives the portraits of magnificent 

 specimens shot in Wurtemberg, Hesse, or elsewhere ; and here may be 

 seen antlers which make you mute with astonishment, so mighty are 

 they in their proportions, and occasionally of such fantastic growth. To 

 a sportsman the family portrait gallery of a high ancestral house is not 

 more interesting than the inspection of such collection of the progenitors 

 of the noble red-deer race. 



E 4 



