214 STAG-HUNTING 



or twice from breaking him up to make them obedient. 

 Then the skin is whipped off, and they are allowed 

 to enjoy their portion while the horns blow the ap- 

 propriate melody. 



The horn still plays an important part in foreign 

 hunting ; all men belonging to the establishment, even 

 those on foot, carry horns, the list of authorised sounds 

 being nearly as long as that in our Cavalry Drill-Book ; 

 and though a great brass instrument that goes twice 

 round your body must be an awkward thing to fall 

 on, yet in a wooded country I have no doubt that 

 when intelligently used it is exceedingly useful. The 

 French horn appears in the sporting pictures in the 

 hall at Longleat, and when the seventh Sir Thomas 

 Acland kept the staghounds (1784-1794), according 

 to Dr. Collyns, 1 he used to furnish some of the 

 servants with French horns. ' These men were 

 stationed at different spots round the covert, and gave 

 notice that a warrantable deer had been viewed away 

 by playing a particular tune upon the instruments.' 

 Mr. Collier, writing in the ' Badminton Magazine ' for 

 January, 1896, says the French horn was likewise 

 used in South Devon, and that if a man sounded the 

 wrong call at the wrong time, he was made to taste 

 the whip at the end of the day. 



1 Chase of the Wild Red Deer, p. 85. 



