By Jove! we are upon them. Tread lightly, crouch closely, speak lowly, breathe softly, while we examine the situation of the herd with our glasses, and the hill-men go round to give the deer their wind and drive them to us. SOUTHRON. Amongst so many scores of hinds how few harts! there are some large beasts, but not one good head. How can I bear off a trophy from such a herd? I would have the horns of my first hart "hung up like monuments"-memorials of what I saw and did in the North-to relieve the tedium of after hours of sluggish ease and inglorious repose. There is nothing here in the shape of horn that a cutler would give you half-a-crown for. FORESTER. Look lower down the glen: there are at least three harts royal; one has a crowned, another a palmed top, and another-magnificent creature!-his horns are neither crowned, nor palmed, nor yet exactly forked, but irregular, as those of most old harts are. He is so much larger than the rest, that if we wound him, I think I can trace him by his slot, though he keep up with the herd. Now he turns * The idea of giving this sketch in dialogue was suggested by a late publication. It is a mode of writing not ill-adapted to an explanation of some of the niceties of deer stalking—an art which can only be learned thoroughly on forest-ground. this way. What horns! What a span !—the width between the horns is a sure indication of a well-grown animal. He has a perfect head, "beamed, branched, and summed," as they would have said in old times. He has brow-antlers, surantlers, royals, and croches *-perfect! SOUTHRON. He has brow, bay, and tray-antlers, and three or four points on the top of each beam. He is grey on the breast, face, haunches, and shoulder! May not that fine fellow be old enough to recollect the war-whoop of Culloden? Many a proud lord and stalwart forester has been laid low since he first browsed on the braes. FORESTER. Move quietly, or those listening watchful hinds will betray us. Hinds must have been unknown` to the ancients; or they would never have invented such a non-descript as Argus, since a two-eyed hind would have answered their purpose as well. SOUTHRON. What in the world are the men doing?—do you call this driving deer?-the men are going from them. I do not know how you measure distance in such a country as this, but I should say the men are a mile off the deer-the deer can neither see nor hear them--you are joking when you say they can smell them. FORESTER. The deer must not see them: the men are now * Sometimes called crockets. manœuvring to give them their wind, without being seen on their doing so at the right place and time, the chance of our getting a shot depends. No quadruped has so acute a sense of smell as a deer. I will back him against a blood-hound. I have heard of a tame deer that was in the habit of going with a shepherd to the hills: whenever it happened that he went without it, the deer would trace him step by step, though he had five or six hours start of it. Observe how the glens converge to a point about half a mile beyond the deer-a false movement there will be fatal-none but experienced foresters can tell which way the currents pass therethe sentinel hinds on the left, prick their ears to listen, and raise their noses to catch the taint in the air-they suspect danger-the men have given them their wind at the wrong point-and now the whole herd are off, they have taken to the plain where they are safe. We must commence another cast. . SOUTHRON. Not for all the deer in the forest. How many miles have we walked, trotted, run, crawled, and swum already? and how high, as the geographers express it, have we been above the level of the sea? However, this is glorious sport! the very possibility of obtaining a shot is enough. We will re sume to-morrow. In this manner, or with a miss, or the death of a hind killed by mistake, the day often terminates; but frequent failures tend only to heighten the pleasure of ultimate success. We do not know whether an apology is due for the warmth, flashiness, or flippancy, we so frequently affect; certain it is, sportsmen do not speak of their doings as if reading a church-homily; therefore, we think it would be out of place here to write in that key-note. Right or wrong, we will go on as we have begun, endeavouring to keep our readers in humour, because it is good for their health; and, moreover, we take credit for being marvellously good-humoured ourself, when not put out of the way. We must now attempt a brief description of wild-deer and deer-forests, and then conclude the chapter with some of the events of a successful stalk. The red-deer or stag, is found chiefly in the uncultivated mountainous districts of Scotland and Ireland. The greater part of his body is a dark red-brown colour. He is a much more noble animal in appearance than the calf-like fallow-deer. His height, when erect, is seven or eight feet from the ground to the tip of his horns. To destroy the deer of an adversary was once a mode of annoyance. Chevy Chase, it would seem, from the opening stanzas of the famous ballad of that name, was an expedition of this description: To drive the Deer with Hound and Horn, Earl Piercy took his Way; The Child may rue that was unborn, The Hunting of that Day. The stout Earl of Northumberland, His Pleasure in the Scottish Woods, With fifteen Hundred Bowmen bold, Who knew full well in time of Need, The Hounds ran swiftly through the Woods, And with their cries the Hills and Dales An Echo shrill did make. The pursuit of deer with the rifle is termed deerstalking. To kill the semi-domesticated fallowdeer requires little skill beyond that possessed by a good marksman. The skill of the deer-stalker, in pursuit of red-deer, is not only dependant on a good use of the rifle, but is shewn in his ability to find and approach his game-to do which successfully, requires the most unwearied perseverance. Many of the Scottish forests, wherein the stalking of deer in their wild state is practised, are of immense extent. It is on such tracts of land as the forests of Marr, Atholl, and Invercauld-not inferior to the smaller English counties in extentthat the red-deer is sought. The forest of Atholl alone is said to be more than forty miles long, and in one part eighteen broad, of which about 30,000 imperial acres are devoted to grouse, 50,000 partly to grouse and partly to deer, and there are reserved solely for deer-stalking 52,000 imperial acres. In these vast solitudes-if the longevity assigned to deer by tradition be true-the Highlander stalks |