ROE SHOOTING. ■ 299 



playing. Under such trees, the ground will be found cut up 

 and trodden down just as a field is where horses have been 

 exercised. First you will stroll through a stretch of woodland 

 where the dark pines, yellowing larches and russet beeches 

 give colour to the scene ; and as you go, you will do well to 

 cast ever and anon a glance upon the soft spots in the ride, 

 in order that you may ascertain if roe are still about in the 

 woods. You can see no signs, so, climbing the wall of loose 

 stones that surrounds the wood, starting a rabbit as you do so, 

 you cross some grass-fields where a few sheep and cattle are 

 feeding, then strike across a furzy, heather-grown common, and 

 finally reach a narrow strip of young fir-trees, which, some 

 five hundred yards further on, joins a large plantation. There 

 will probably be some four hundred acres of covert, and it 

 would appear that looking for roe-deer here would be much 

 like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. But now your 

 woodcraft comes into play. You will search the runs of the 

 deer, noting if tracks be fresh, and in which direction they lead ; 

 then, too, you will perhaps remember a certain patch of wild roses 

 and brambles that you have noted as a favourite feeding spot, 

 and so you will form your plan of campaign. Several passes 

 or runs have been examined with no result, till in a bare, moist 

 spot in the ride along which you are walking a fresh slot 

 arrests your attention. There is no mistaking the sign, for a 

 blade of broad, coarse grass has been partly trodden in, and, from 

 where the roe-deer's hoof has crushed it, the sap is still exuding. 

 Yes, it is fresh enough, and your deer, probably not ten minutes 

 in front of you, is heading towards a patch of oats you know of, 

 green still, and unlikely ever to be harvested. You hurry on, 



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