THE HABITS OF THE WILD RED DEER. 197 



Stag-hunting, as pursued on Exmoor, would be almost impossible. 

 He must lie out at night to discover where the lord of each herd 

 has his favourite feeding-ground, and by what path or " rack" this 

 fastidious gentleman comes back to covert at daybreak. Some 

 fat deer are too lazy to wander far from their favourite haunts ; 

 while others have been known to make their way twenty miles 

 across the moor in a few hours for change of diet. It is the 

 harbourer's business to find all this out, though he may rarely want 

 to draw on such resources of knowledge. The country over 

 which he exercises his craft is as wide as the county of Rutland, 

 and he must sometimes cross it between sunset and dawn to begin 

 his work of slotting, before the faint imprints of hoofs on dewy 

 grass or dusty paths have time to disappear. He will go first into 

 a cornfield, or orchard, or turnip plot, and a glance is enough to 

 tell him whether stags Or hinds have been feeding there. A hind 

 draws the ears of corn through her teeth, stripping out all the 

 grains, but a stag nibbles only half the ear daintily. In a turnip- 

 field the hind eats clean down to the ground, while a stag pulls 

 the root up, and after taking one bite throws all that is left over 

 his head in lordly wastefulness. Among apple-trees hinds only 

 strip off the fruit that they can reach easily, but if branches are 

 broken at a height of seven or eight feet the harbourer knows 

 without looking at the ground that a stag has been there, but why, 

 he will probably not be able to tell you. Richard Jefferies in all 

 his researches did not discover by what means stags get at their 

 favourite apples, higher than a tall man can stretch his arm. If 

 you watch an orchard, night after night, however, taking care that 

 deer cannot get scent of your presence, you may, perchance, see 

 a great stag raise himself on his hind legs and then, leaping up, 



