IN DEVON AND SOMERSET 233 



as successive woodcocks resort year after year to the 

 same spring. 



The worst thing that can happen in tufting is to 

 rouse a hind or male deer before you find your stag ; 

 however quickly the tufters may be stopped there the 

 fresh scent will remain to distract them. It is bad 

 enough when your stag pushes up another deer soon 

 after he has been roused himself. That difficulty you 

 may get over by putting your hounds on the 

 heel of the fresh deer, or by trying them again on the 

 original line, but many a day has been marred by 

 the former event, even though a second lot of tufters 

 may be drawn to replace the first. Old stags will lie 

 very close, and if found only by a single hound will 

 even stand at bay and refuse to stir. I do not think 

 they are often drawn over, but they are sometimes. 

 Mr. Bisset relates how on one occasion ' that wonder- 

 ful old hound, Joe Blackmore ' the harbourer hit a 

 stag's slot and hunted him to his bed in a cover the 

 hounds had drawn blank. One l occasion I remember 

 particularly when we found a stag in a very open 

 cover, the Allotments, at 5.30 P.M., having already 

 run through it twice, and drawn it once before without 

 moving him. 



I have known many a good run that did not begin 

 ' August 21, 1885. 



