[STALKING vbl. sb.]
1. A horse trained to allow a fowler to conceal himself behind it or under its coverings in order to get within easy range of the game without alarming it. Hence, a portable screen of canvas or other light material, made in the figure of a horse (or sometimes of other animals), similarly used for concealment in pursuing game.
1519. in Archæologia, XXV. 420. Item pd for Shoyng of Thomas Lawes Stawkyng horse … iij d.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 133. This is a beast standing amazed at euery strange sight, euen at the hunters bow and Arrowe, comming behind a stalking Horsse.
1611. Cotgr., Tonnelle, a Tunnell, or staulking horse for Partridges.
1621. Markham, Fowling, viii. 47, 49–50. The Stalking-Horse … is any old Iade trayned vp for that vse, which … will gently … walke vp and downe in the water…; and then … you shall shelter your selfe and your Peice behind his fore shoulder. Now forasmuch as these Stalking horses … are not euer in readinesse…. In this case he may take any pieces of oulde Canuasse, and hauing made it in the shape or proportion of a Horse…, let it be painted as neere the colour of a Horse as you can deuise.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. ii. IV. (1624), 226. Fowling…, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades … stawking horses, setting-dogges, &c.
a. 1698. W. Blundell, Cavalier’s Note Book (1880), 106. The use of stalking-horses is great…. Horses are easily taught. Some do use to have a painted horse carried upon a frame.
1706. Art Painting (1744), 134. Giovanni d’Udine … is thought to have been the inventor of the stalking-horse, which poachers now use.
1780. Pitt, Lett., in Ld. Stanhope, Life (1861), I. i. 36. Your moor must be in the perfection of winter beauty; but I suppose with hardly any cattle upon it, except stalking horses.
1875. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Rural Sports, I. I. i. § 5. He is enabled to drop his net over the place without the trouble of using the stalking-horse.
1902. Cornish, Naturalist on Thames, 7. The flats of the Upper Thames, where … the wild duck are stalked with the stalking-horse, as of old.
2. fig. a. A person whose agency or participation in a proceeding is made use of to prevent its real design from being suspected. ? Obs.
1612. Webster, White Devil, III. i. 41. You … were made his engine, and his stauking horse, To undo my sister.
1693. Congreve, Double-Dealer, II. iv. Do you think her fit for nothing but to be a Stalking-Horse to stand before you, while you take aim at my Wife?
a. 1763. Shenstone, Progr. Taste, I. 78. Let me provide Some human form to grace my side: At hand,… An useful, pliant, stalking-horse!
b. An underhand means or expedient for making an attack or attaining some sinister object; usually, a pretext put forward for this purpose.
1579. W. Wilkinson, Confut. Fam. Love, 70 b. Abusing the pretence of the Gospell as a stalking horse to leuell at others by.
1594. Order for Prayer, To Rdr. A 4. Certaine who … serue themselues of that idolatrous Romish religion, as of a Maske and stalking horse, therewith to couer the vnsatiable ambition … of vsurping the kingdoms of other Princes.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., V. iv. 111. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse.
1624. Gee, New Shreds of Old Snare, 14. They made Religion a stalking horse to intend their own profit.
1792. Ld. Auckland, in Corr. (1861), II. 423. The cause of Poland … is … thought a good mot de guerre; and under that stalking-horse, the dissenters and levellers are preparing to attack us.
1827. Scott, Napoleon, Introd., Wks. 1870, VIII. 207. His … popularity had … been the stalking-horse, through means of which, men … had taken aim at their own objects.
1835. Sir W. Hamilton, Discuss. (1852), 520. Their conscience is merely a stalking-horse, moved by their interest, and to conceal it.
1865. Dickens, Lett. (1880), II. 240. The cattle plague is the butcher’s stalking-horse.
1880. L. Stephen, Pope, ii. 55. His [Pope’s] indefensible use of Addison’s fame as a stalking-horse in the attack upon Dennis.
