Like The Hare, If The Fore-Leg Is
Injured, Deer Cannot Progress; If Only The Hind-Quarter Is Hit, There Is
No Telling How Far They May Go.
Therefore the cross-bow, as enabling the
hunter to choose the exact spot where his bolt should strike, became the
weapon of the chase, and by its very perfection began the extermination
of the deer.
Instead of the hounds and the noisy hunt, any man who could
use the cross-bow could kill a buck. The long-bow, of all weapons,
requires the most practice, and practice begun in early youth. Some of
the extraordinary feats attributed to the outlaws in the woods and to the
archers of the ancient English army are quite possible, but must have
necessitated the constant use of a bow from childhood, so that it became
second nature. But almost any man who has strength to set a cross-bow,
with moderate practice, and any idea at all of shooting, could become a
fairly good shot with it. From the cross-bow to a gun was a comparatively
easy step, and it was the knowledge of the power of the one that led to
the quick introduction of the other. For gunpowder was hardly discovered
before hand-guns were thought of, and no discovery ever spread so
swiftly. Then the arquebuse swept away the old English chase.
These deer exist by permission. They are protected with jealous care; or
rather they have been protected so long that by custom they have grown
semi-consecrated, and it is rare for anyone to think of touching them.
The fawns wander, and a man, if he choose, might often knock one over
with his axe as he comes home from his work. The deer browse up to the
very skirts of the farmhouse below, sometimes even enter the rick-yard,
and once now and then, if a gate be left open, walk in and eat the pease
in the garden. The bucks are still a little wilder, a little more nervous
for their liberty, but there is no difficulty in stalking them to within
forty or fifty yards. They have either lost their original delicacy of
scent, or else do not respond to it, as the approach of a man does not
alarm them, else it would be necessary to study the wind; but you may get
thus near them without any thought of the breeze - no nearer; then,
bounding twice or thrice, lifting himself each time as high as the fern,
the buck turns half towards you to see whether his retreat should or
should not be continued.
The fawns have come out from the beeches, because there is more grass on
the slope and in the hollow, where trees are few. Under the trees in the
forest proper there is little food for them. Deer, indeed, seem fonder of
half-open places than of the wood itself. Thickets, with fern at the foot
and spaces of sward between, are their favourite haunts.
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