1 98 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



Strike at the boughs with his strong antlers, using them as a 

 woodman does a billhook. Thus he gets enough for an ample 

 meal, which he eats so voraciously that he takes no trouble to crunch 

 the apples, but swallows them whole. At the first gleam of dawn 

 red deer make their way to the densest thickets, and to reach these 

 they use, time after time, the same tracks, with which they become 

 so familiar that anything unusual there — a twig cut and laid down, 

 or a string of wild birds' feathers stretched from bush to bush, is 

 enough to give the alarm. If hard pressed in chase, however, a 

 stag does not look for any path, but crashes through the thickest 

 copses and tosses the netted oak branches aside as if they were 

 spray. To do this he lays his antlers back until they rest each side 

 of his flanks, acting as the cutwater of a ship that cleaves through 

 waves and flings foam from her bows. When the harbourer has 

 learned by certain signs that a heavy stag has been feeding 

 anywhere, he proceeds to slot him, and in this he shows skill not 

 inferior to the Red Indian's woodcraft. He can tell by the size 

 of a slot, and the width that the cleft hoofs were apart when they 

 made that imprint, whether the stag is heavy or light, and whether 

 he went at a walk towards the covert or was alarmed into quicker 

 flight. If there has been rain enough to make the ground soft this is 

 easy, but often a harbourer can find no trace plainer than a deer's 

 hoof makes in crushing down blades of grass, so that they look 

 dark green amid the grey dew. At one point perhaps he will draw 

 your attention, if you have the privilege of being his companion on 

 such an expedition, to some mark on hard ground, scarcely per- 

 ceptible in the dim light of dawn. " That's ov'n shore 'nuff," he 

 will say, " but 'er didn' maake thickee last night, I'll warn." 

 Asked how he can read that in a print that looks quite sharp and 



