Red Deer 47 
a forest scene that he had witnessed a short time before. In the foreground was a nice 
lot of those thumping stags he knew so well how to depict. They were all comfortably 
feeding, and the stalkers coming down the hill-side in the background seemed to have it 
all their own way, but for one old hind in the centre of the picture, whose suspicions 
were keenly aroused, and who, if she gave the alarm, would carry off with her in a trice 
all those fat harts. Everything seemed right in the picture, but Sir Edwin, who believed 
much in local expert criticism, called for Donald, one of the stalkers, a man of strong 
individuality and caustic humour. Donald then came into the hall and began to stalk 
that picture. His experienced eye grasped the situation at once. At the first glance 
he saw the point of danger, and then, like a good stalker, he examined every nook and cranny 
in the landscape where another outlying beast might possibly be found equally threatening 
to spoil the sport. He took such a time over this that Sir Edwin at last pulled him up, 
asking what he thought of the picture, upon which Donald marched up in front of the 
central point of interest and, shaking his 
fist fiercely in the face of the old lady on 
guard, hissed, “Yon auld deil o’ a hind, 
she’s jist putten’ her noo-as into the air 
to see what she can hear ”—as pretty a hash 
of idioms as one could well desire. 
The cunning of a stag is considerable, 
particularly when he has reached his 
prime. By that time he has learned to 
gauge degrees of danger, and knows some¬ 
thing of the habits of man—his protector 
and his slayer. Look, for instance, at the 
way in which he turns to his own advan¬ 
tage the eyes and ears of some younger male 
of his own race. Like other creatures one could mention, he knows the luxury of a “ fag,” and 
takes care to furnish himself with one as soon as may be. No one who has watched one of 
these cunning old fellows enjoying the maximum of food and rest with a minimum of danger 
can fail to be struck with the reasoning power of an animal who can thus appropriate the senses 
of another and make him feel the truth of the proverb “ Might is right.” During the time 
that his lord is feeding the fag has to keep incessantly on the watch, or he will quickly be 
recalled to a sense of his duties in a way he is not likely to forget. A gentleman who 
hunts regularly with the Devon and Somerset staghounds told me that on one occasion he 
was posted at the top of a wood about to be drawn, in which had been harboured a big 
stag and his fag. He saw the stag and the brocket started by the tufters in the middle of 
the wood, and they galloped up the hill towards him. Then, just as both appeared to be 
on the point of breaking cover, the big stag drove the brocket out of the wood, and without 
showing himself on the outskirts, suddenly plunged back into the cover in front of the 
hounds, which were now in full cry, and was seen by another huntsman to go and lie down 
in the bed just vacated by the fag. There is no doubt these old stags are in the habit of 
using their fags as scapegoats. 
‘ YON AULD DEIL O A HIND 
