. The young sportsman's manual : or, recreations in shooting ; with some account of the game found in the British Islands, and practical directions for the management of dog and gun . ence; as, the icy fangAnd churlish chiding of the winters wind. Already, at the Norman conquest, the red deerhad been hunted to the thinning of their species, andour invaders did their utmost for its presentation andincrease. They exacted heavy fines from those whotrespassed on deer-enclosures, and life for life, if pre-meditated, was the doom awarded to the biped whoslew the quadmped. Blaine gives a curious tran
. The young sportsman's manual : or, recreations in shooting ; with some account of the game found in the British Islands, and practical directions for the management of dog and gun . ence; as, the icy fangAnd churlish chiding of the winters wind. Already, at the Norman conquest, the red deerhad been hunted to the thinning of their species, andour invaders did their utmost for its presentation andincrease. They exacted heavy fines from those whotrespassed on deer-enclosures, and life for life, if pre-meditated, was the doom awarded to the biped whoslew the quadmped. Blaine gives a curious transla-tion of a passage of Arrians, relative to the stag-hunting of the Anglo-Saxons. It is in the form of adialogue, and runs thus :— I am a hunter to one of the kings.—How do DEER-STALKING. 15 you exercise your art?—I spread my nets, and setthem in a fit place, and instmct my hounds to piusuethe wild deer till they come to the nets unexpectedly,and so are entangled, and I slay them in the nets.—Cannot you hunt without nets ?—Yes; with swifthounds I follow the wild deer.—What wild deer doyou chiefly take?—Harts, boars, and rein deer, andgoats, and sometimes LIIE LEEii. The slow but certain march of civilization, not-withstanding every effort to the contrary, gradually 16 DEER-STALKING. all but extiipated many of the noblest denizens of theforest. Boars, bears, wolves, antelopes, beavers,—these th us, at length, and at different periods, be-came extinct. The stag, or hart, or red deer, re-ceded as population advanced; the circle of itsretreats became narrower and narrower, until itsprung upwards to the inaccessible fortresses of themomitains ; and there intrenched, it appeared to havebecome at once fierce, shy, and wary. This, attimes, in the Scotch holds, or the wild western tractsof Ireland, would turn at bay, like the Roman in thecapitol, upon its pursuers, or leaping agilely beyondtheir reach, roar out its challenge and defiance. Thisdescript
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