Stag hound

“ The ordinary fox-hound has had his inheritances determined so as to fit him for pursuing a small animal which can rarely be kept in view during its flight, and which can only be followed by the odor it leaves in its trail, so these creatures run almost altogether under guidance of their sense of smell. The stag-hound, on the other hand, pursues a relatively large animal which cannot well be followed by the nose, at least with any speed; they therefore trust almost altogether to vision in their chase. ”

“ The stately Stag-hound, with his steady, cautious qualities, is little less valuable than the blood-hound for following a scent. Marvellous feats are related of his perseverance and strength in pursuit of his game; but since the reign of George the Third, the breed has not been kept up. That monarch was particularly fond of this description of hunting; but now, having fallen into disuse, it is not likely to be revived. Stag-hounds are somewhat smaller than the blood-hound; rougher, with a wider nose, shorter head, loose hanging ears, and a rush tail, nearly erect. ”

“ A large stag-hound of the greyhound species approached at this moment, and attracted perhaps by the gesture, licked her hands and pressed his large head against them. He obtained the desired caresses in return, but still the sad impression remained.
“Wolf,” she said, as if the animal could have understood her complaints, “thou art a noble and beautiful animal; but, alas! the love and affection that I long to bestow, is of a quality higher than can fall to thy share, though I love thee much.” ”

“ A player; an old cock grouse.
Staghound (Canis Strenuus) , s. A hound kept for hunting stags.
The stag-hound is now the largest and most powerful of all the dogs which go under the general term of hound. He is held higher in estimation than any other dog of chase, and has a most commanding and dignified aspect, blended with every mark of intellectual mildness.
It has been asserted by the most celebrated naturalists, that the hound, harrier, turnspit, water-dog, and spaniel, are originally of the same race ”

“ Dogs and man obeyed his voice with a will, and the unfortunate stag went bounding from one danger into the jaws of a greater. Terrified by the shouts and bayings behind him, and sorely hampered by the trees and undergrowth, he burst wildly into a glade, hoping to make a quicker dash for safety, but found himself, instead, confronted by a crowd of hunters on horse and afoot. Effectually cornered, he turned to bay, and the first hound that approached was tossed a good dozen yards, landing with a thud and a howl right under the heels of Dorothy's pony. ”

“ If your hunting lot should be cast within distance of a stag-hound kennel, I would strongly advise you to learn something about the hounds. Your pleasure in the chase will be greater if you can distinguish between the notes of a trusted hound and those of a youngster which has not proved his right to your confidence. ”

“ When any one enters the room, they make a most tyrannical barking that is absolutely deafening. They are insolent to all the other dogs of the establishment. There is a noble stag-hound, a great favourite of the Squire’s, who is a privileged visitor to the parlour ”

“ Some few Scottish stag-hounds, and other dogs of the hound varieties, have been brought in by Hudson Bay officers and others; but while they make very swift trains, they can only be used for short trips, as they are too tender to stand the bitter cold and exposure, or the long and difficult journeys, often of many days’ duration, through the wild and desolate regions. ”

“ I will not say a full blood stag hound is not all right, in a level, unobstructed country, but in many parts of the country many large dogs would not be able to get thru the fences or over the rough ground with the ease that the smaller ones do.
I have never seen the big dog that could catch and kill a wolf by himself. ”

“ The last has grown into a very large and beautiful animal, something like the stag-hound in the picture-book we used to study together long ago. He is exceedingly fond of me, and I feel him to be quite a protector. The cocks and hens, the cow and the old mare, are also in perfect health ”

“ Covetousness bursts the sack, and spills the grain. Look you, when the huntsman goes to kill a stag, he takes with him more dogs than one—He has the stanch lyme-hound to track the wounded buck over hill and dale, but he hath also the fleet gaze-hound to kill him at view. Thou art the lyme-hound, I am the gaze-hound, and thy patron will need the aid of both, and can well afford to requite it. Thou hast deep sagacity—an unrelenting purpose—a steady long-breathed malignity of nature, that surpasses mine. ”

“ All the instances adduced go only to prove that the dimensions and strength of members and the perfection of certain attributes may, in a long succession of generations, be lessened and enfeebled by disuse; or, on the contrary, be matured and augmented by active exertion; just as we know that the power of scent is feeble in the greyhound, while its swiftness of pace and its acuteness of sight are remarkable—that the harrier and stag-hound, on the contrary, are comparatively slow in their movements, but excel in the sense of smelling. ”

“ There is no find, and no finish; and the checks generally consist in whipping off the too eager hounds. As a compensation, when the deer does not run cunning, or along roads, the pace is tremendous.
The Surrey stag-hounds, in the season of 1857, had some runs with the Ketton Hind equal in every respect to the best fox-hunts on record; for she repeatedly beat them, was loose in the woods for days, was drawn for like a wild deer, and then, with a burning scent, ran clear away from the hounds, while the hounds ran away from the horsemen. ”

“ As he bounded past us, we sprang up and shouted, and if ever a dumb animal was astonished it was that deer. He leaped up a dozen feet into the air, bleated out in the extremity of his terror, and plunged madly forward, as if a whole legion of fiends were at his tail. The stag hounds which were tied to a sapling, by their fierce baying, added vigor to his flight. We heard his snort at every bound across the island, and his plunge into the lake on the other side. ”

“ The pack of hounds were an endless source of delight to the general. We had about forty: the stag-hounds107 that run by sight, and are on the whole the fleetest and most enduring dogs in the world, and the fox-hounds that follow the trail with their noses close to the ground. The first rarely bark, but the latter are very noisy. The general and I used to listen with amusement to their attempts to strike the key-note of the bugler when he sounded the calls summoning the men to guard mount, stables, or retreat. ”

“ And the hunters should break the bay as often as they can for two causes; the one lest he (the stag) hurt the hounds, if he stand and rest long in one place; another is that the relays that stand far can come up with their hounds the while he is alive, and be at the death. And it is to be known that if any of the hunters have been at any time while the deer hath been run to out of hearing of hound and horn, he should have blown the forloyne,221 unless he were in a park, for there it should never be blown. ”

“ Once when the stag-hounds were let out of the kennel for exercise, they flew like the winds over the hills after a coyote. The soldier who took care of them could only follow on foot, as the crust on the snow would not bear the weight of a horse. After a long, cold walk he found the dogs standing over the wolf they had killed. When he had dragged it back to our wood-shed he sent in to ask if the general would come and see what the dogs had done unaided and alone, for he was very proud of them. ”

“ In the dry season, when the huntsman cannot judge by the footstep, he is obliged to return upon the track of the animal, and endeavour to find his dung. To be able to determine by which requires perhaps more experience than a knowledge of the footsteps, yet without it the huntsman could not make a just report to the sportsmen assembled. When, in consequence of this report, the dogs are led to the shelter of the stag, the huntsman should know how to animate his hound, and make him rest upon the track of the stag until he be dislodged. ”

“ There is a short break in the wood soon afterwards, a steep grassy slope with a hay-hut at its foot. The place is called Hirsch-sprung, because in olden days a hunted stag took the whole descent at a single leap. Any one who has seen stags pursued by a hound will admit that they are remarkable jumpers. They seldom get as good a chance as this, of showing what they can do. The distance aerially traversed must be about eighty yards.
Tiefis is a new and prosperous village ”

“ When the season is over, the best of the young hounds should be taken into the pack, and the draft of old ones exchanged for them. Many must be bred to enable a sportsman to take in twenty couple of young hounds every season. It will always be easy to keep up the number of old hounds, for, when your own draft is not sufficient, drafts from other packs may be obtained, and at a small expense. When young hounds are hunted together for the first season, and have not a sufficient number of old ones along with them, it does more harm than good.”—Vide Beagle, Harrier, Fox and Stag-hound. ”

“ In addition to a herd of fallow deer, amounting to about one thousand six hundred, which are kept in Richmond Park, there is generally a stock of from forty to fifty red deer. Some stags from the latter are selected every year, and sent to Swinley, in order to be hunted by the king’s stag-hounds. When a stag, which has been hunted for three or four seasons, is returned to the park, to end his days there, he is generally more fierce and dangerous than any of the others at a particular season of the year. ”

“ They make a good income by the sale of game, and by breaking dogs—they take the crown of the causeway in the country towns, where they are perfectly well known, and where the men give them "plenty of walking-room." On such occasions, they are accompanied with a couple of magnificent stag-hounds, and in this guise they venture undauntedly beneath the very nose of "ta Phuscal!" ”

“ A fresh find is a beautiful sight, and the tricks and dodges of a wily old stag would fill many chapters. To anyone fond of seeing hounds work, and not only anxious for a gallop, the sight of hounds trying to pick out the line of their deer, when he has gone up or down stream, is alone worth going out for. It is extraordinary how long a deer's scent will hold on the moor. It is no uncommon thing for hounds to hunt up to, and kill their stag, after he has been two hours ahead of them. ”

“ Not a cloud in the sky, a sun almost tropical in its power, but a pure clear air that fanned the brow wherever the forest opened into glades, and filled the broad nostrils of a dozen large, deep-chested, rich-coloured stag-hounds, snuffing and questing busily down a track of arid grass that seemed to have checked their steady, well-considered unrelenting chase, and brought their wondrous instinct to a fault. ”

“ Miles would say, "and ride as hard as you can go for the point to which he is making; he will dodge round you if you ride at him, but he will not deliberately follow you."
But now our stag, with an air of insulted majesty, turns his back upon us and sets out for his long last journey. He must rouse himself, for the soul-stirring notes of the hounds float towards us. The pack is at length laid on, the sweet scent fills the big hounds with delirious joy, and in long drawn file they race forward, and the chase begins. ”

“ The sport has never been so vigorously pursued as it was at the beginning of the 20th century, 19 packs of staghounds being kept in England and 4 in Ireland, over 170 packs of foxhounds in England, 10 in Scotland and 23 in Ireland, with packs of harriers and beagles too numerous to be counted. The chase of the wild stag is carried on in the west country by the Devon and Somerset hounds, which hunt three or four days a week from kennels at Dunster ”

“ We had continued our walk for scarce a mile when, but a short distance from us, a stag crossed our path—stood startled—with head erect,—and then with confident leaps vanished in the forest just as the distant hounds became aware of him and joined in a wild chorus. In a few moments the pack came in a rush across our path. Up the different allées rode the horsemen in haste—asking of us news of the stag. We on foot joined in the pursuit,—but at last the forest [85] swallowed one after the other, stag, and hounds, and hunters, and the sound of dog and horn. ”

“ After the hounds have started chasing a stag, the hunted animal will often find another stag or a hind, and pushing it up with its horns or feet will oblige it to get up and take his place, lying down himself in the spot where he found the other, and keeping quiet, with his antlers close over his back, so that the hounds will, if care is not taken, go off in chase of the substitute. Sometimes a stag will go into a herd of deer and try to keep with them, trying to shake off his pursuers, and thus give them the change. ”

“ In winter, when the snow lies on the ground, it is also improper to hunt the stag, as the hounds have no scent, and appear to follow the track rather by the sight than the smell. At this season, as the stags find not sufficient food in the forests, they issue forth into the open country, and go even into inclosures and cultivated lands. They unite in herds in the month of December, and when the frosts are severe, they endeavour to find shelter by the side of a hill or in a thicket, where they lie close, and keep themselves warm by means of their breath. ”