of woodcraft, a branch of pine had been cut and
placed on it with the under side of the spiculse
uppermost. Half an hour had elapsed and I
wondered why the track had not been followed
sooner, until I was informed that there was a
reason for the delay.

"Dogs will eagerly follow the hot blood track
of a deer; but if a dog gets accustomed to the hot
track, he is unwilling ever afterwards to follow
a cold scent, and, as it frequently happens that a
wounded deer cannot be followed on the very
day he is hit, expediency dictates the necessity
of helping the dogs to cold scents alone. So
half an hour having been allowed to elapse, and
the forester having declared that the deer was
hit on the hind quarter and that he could not
have gone far, the fir-branch, originally placed
to mark the stag's starting-point, was turned
over to show that it had been used, and two
keepers, with a bloodhound and a turnspit fast
to their waists by a leathern thong, took to the
track. The brutes pulled with violent tugs at
the thongs, dragging the men so fast on the
windings of the track that we could hardly
follow them. They began after a short time to
whine and bark, which showed that the stag was
at no great distance. The shooting party then
gave up the track, descended the brow of the
wooded hill into a broad meadow, and waited.
The dogs were now let loose, and half a dozen
of them followed the scent and announced the
finding of the stag, with loud and hoarse hayings,
which resounded through the woods. The stag,
as was expected, came down to the meadow, and
he emerged from the trees, limping forward very
fast, with one dog hanging on to his nose and the
rest to his heels and sides. Down he came to a
little brook into which he threw himself, and, at
last, turned at bay. The hound hanging to his
nose kept a firm grip of him, even when the stag,
holding his head down, tried to drown him in
the stream; at the same time the stag butted
violently with his horns in every direction,
making the dogs cautious. Then, tired out, he
fairly lay down in the stream, and at this moment
a shot from the duke's rifle struck him, and a
huntsman running up plunged his dagger into
the expiring animal's heart.

"Don't you think," I continued, looking at
the forester, "it was more interesting than firing
at stags from a tent?"

"Well," he replied, "every man has his
notions of sport. Yours are evidently not
mine."

And so we parted.

The truth is, that even if the expenses of the
old battue shooting at stags had not been so great
as almost to forbid their frequent recurrence in
our day, they would fall into disuse because of
the destruction they entailed. Not only were
old antlered stags killed on these occasions, but
almost all the animals driven into the enclosure
perished. It became evident of late years, that
the indiscriminate slaughter of the dams and
calves would soon make the stags as rare as the
elk, or any other animal who has been hunted
off the face of the earth; the rather as the
conditions under which large deer were enabled
to live in more distant times, are greatly changed.
In proportion as land has been redeemed from
forest or waste, wild animals have become scarce
in Germany. The stag, for instance, does not
grow to tall proportions, and does not rear
antlers of many points, unless he has liberty to
roam over wide expanses. The stag is the
daintiest of feeders. He will wander for miles
over a cultivated vale, before he finds a patch of
verdure that suits his fastidious palate. His
patch of verdure may be five, ten, fifteen miles
from his wooded haunts. He will not be deterred
by distance from constantly revisiting
the spot, and he is only frightened away at last
by the whistle of a rifle ball.

The same contempt of distances is shown in
his perambulations through forests: amid the
recesses of which, he wanders with a strange
caprice; at one time, pleased to lie on the outskirts
of young plantations, in proximity to high
pines, on the summit of the loftiest Thuringian
hills: at others, partial to lower ground. In
warm and genial weather he lies in the short
underwood, and wanders into the cultivated
fields. In wet weather, he takes shelter in the
old forest. In the former case, he falls an easy
prey to the hunter; in the latter, it is next to impossible
to find him. He wanders out at night
to feed, and is home at the earliest streak of
dawn, retiring as far as possible from the haunts
of men. The great improvement that has been
lately made in Germany in the art of keeping
and cutting forests, has brought the game in
closer proximity to man, while the extension of
cultivation has diminished the expanse of woods
to which deer may retire for solitude. The result
is, that although no perceptible difference
has as yet been made in the growth and numbers
of roe-deer, which are small and comparatively
tame, the stag and his dam have become more
and more scarce. Perpetually scared by the approach
of men, they become of smaller size, and
have horns of fewer points, and to those who
care for stag-hunting it becomes a matter of
necessity to shoot with discrimination, and not
to commit too much slaughter; simply because,
unless such precautions were observed, the race
would, in time, probably disappear.
On Thursday next will be published, price
Fourpence,
A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA
FORMING THE
EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER
FOR CHRISTMAS.

The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.
Published at the Office, No. 26, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by C. WHITING, Beaufort House, Strand.