HOUNDS AND HORSES 259 



woands from a stag's horn were nearly always fatal, 

 but I am not aware of any reason for believing it. 

 I know the boar is looked on by Ceylon sportsmen as 

 far more dangerous to approach when at bay than the 

 sambhur ; and as far as my experience goes hounds 

 are less likely to suffer from the after effects of horn 

 wounds than deer are from bites. A great twenty - 

 live-inch hound makes a terrible hole with his teeth, 

 and I am sure it is misplaced humanity to let a deer 

 go, whatever its age or sex, if it has been the least 

 mauled. I remember the hounds once running up a 

 yearling hind in the stag-hunting season. We saved 

 her apparently unhurt, and I gave her to a friend. 

 Unluckily, she had not quite escaped, and there was 

 one deep bite in her thigh. My friend made a pet of 

 her, turned her out with his fallow deer, and took 

 every care of her, but the bite never healed, and she 

 had eventually to be destroyed. 



But although the stags do not do much to shorten 

 the lives of their pursuers, yet a staghound's career 

 is not a long one. The season generally lasts fully 

 eight months. The work is very hard, and the water 

 hunting in winter very trying. Lord Graves said the 

 pack should never run after the end of October, ' you 

 otherwise lose your best hounds by the chill of the 

 water, which occasions violent convulsions, and ter- 



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