OUR NATIVE DEER.*
MR. J. G. Airmais's fine book on British deer is one of the best monographs of its kind yet written ; and for comprehen- sive interest, other than that attaching to these animals as objects of the chase, it deserves to rank as the first authority on the subject. So far from finding it difficult to say anything new, there is very little which he has to say which is not new; and though its interest is less varied than that of his South African notes in A Breath from the Veldt, many of the drawings from Nature are quite as brilliant, and the letter-
press is, from the nature of the subject, more complete. There are bright and well-illustrated descriptions of deer-stalking, but otherwise sport is wisely kept in the background. A fresh and very accessible source of interest suggested to those who like to learn the habits of animals at first hand is the study of the ways of deer kept in parks. Park stags, as Mr. Millais very sensibly observes, are not tame animals, but "wild deer under restraint." As a rule, the larger and wilder the park, the more do the deer tend to retain their old habits ; but as most of the author's capital sketches, both with pen and pencil, were made in the park of Warnham Court, in Sussex, which is only two hundred and fifty acres in extent, small parks offer ample scope for this pleasant side-study in natural history. " Stalking " is part of the fun, and then comes the enjoyment of watching the animals at such close quarters that you can note how the starlings run over the deer's heads catching insects, and will even pick a fly out of the corner of a deer's eye, a more delicate operation than the trochilus plover performs for the crocodile, or how the jack- daws, when they wish to line their nests with deer-far, hop up to the reposing stage and tweak out tufts of hair from the living animal. For those whose eyes are not self-sufficing one of the new Viennese single-glasses, which shut up into a space only three inches long, will be found of great assistance in these and similar outdoor notes on natural history. Among the manners and customs of park deer noted by Mr. Millais is their curious habit, when resting in the sun, of lying not only with their fore-feet stretched in front of them and their chin resting on them, like a dog, but of sprawling their hind-legs behind them, "knees downwards." Thus the deer lies wholly on its belly, the object being partly to relax all the back muscles and enjoy the sense of laziness, but partly to protect all the lower parts, liable to be bitten by flies and midges, by contact with the ground. We have often seen the red-deer in Richmond Park do this, but not the fallow. The rhea, or American ostrich, also lies down to sun itself with its legs stretched out behind it. Red-deer also make "wallows," or mud-baths, in parks, and use these mainly at night, and
• British Deer and their Horne. By J. G. Millais. Illustrated with 185 Teat and Full.pago Illustrations, mostly by the Author. London : Sotheran and Co.
most frequently when they are changing their coats, and the skin is irritable. The mud also helps to get rid of the loosened hair. The ways of the hinds and calves of park red. deer, and the way in which the very young calves are hidden and made to lie like hares by their mothers, have been described before now in the Spectator ; but Mr. Millais has seen a hind strike a calf with her foot when it would not obey the push of her muzzle, with which she gives the signal for it to "drop." He has also observed the female roebuck administer the same discipline. These are all thoroughly wild traits of character in park deer. Parallel evidence to this deep-rooted instinct is given by the odd fact that it is nearly always dangerous to tame red-deer stags. Fallow bucks do become really tame ; they not only lose their fear of man, but grow to like him, and become attached and domesti- cated. But the stag simply loses its fear of man without becoming attached. Contempt follows familiarity, and at the seasons when stags grow combative, these "tamed" animals attack men out of sheer ill-temper. The following occurs among the instances quoted by Mr. Millais. The late Mr. Coleman, of Stoke Park, near Slough, by change of blood and pro- viding good pasture made his red-deer stock some of the finest in England. Some of the young stags were encouraged to become very tame. When the herd was sold six of these tame stags were bought by Lord Ilchester, and others by Sir Edmund Loder, and Mr. Charles Lucas, of Warnham Court. Lord Ilchester's six stags made Methury Park quite unsafe ; and Sir Edmund Loder had to shoot his at Whittle- bury for the same reason. Mr. Lucas bought two, one of which always behaved itself, the other did not. "The family at Warnham were just going to dinner, when loud cries for help were heard from a cluster of oaks near the house, and almost immediately a big stag was seen chivying Muggridge (the old keeper) round and round a tree." A few minutes' delay might have cost the man his life, but Mr. Lucas seized a gun and shot the deer. Several other cases of the danger from park stags are given, with the general observation that the uncertain light of evening or early morning is the usual time of such encounters ; evening strolls in deer-parks during late September and October should, therefore, be avoided. We feel sure that before long the Richmond stags will attack a cyclist on his evening ride, just as the Stowe stag attacked the Duke of Buckingham's carriage, when both guests and coachman had to creep under the vehicle, and the stag killed a horse. The following delightful case of a really tame stag should, however, be quoted. It belonged to the Seaforth Highlanders, and was taught to march with the regiment, in which it chose a series of friends, which it made or deserted as fancy suggested :—
"At one time he would attach himself warmly to some private soldier, betraying an affection quite embarrassing. He would follow the man wherever he went, climbing the highest stairs in the barracks to where his pal dwelt, and in the barrack-room he would lie on the floor and share the tea and bread, or anything else that his friend offered him. But these maudlin fits never lasted more than a month. Within that time he would be off with his old love and on with another 'soldier boy.' Another trait of his character was exhibited in the local knowledge he learned to display. The sergeants' wives in the married quarters were especially kind to him, many of them giving him a little milk whenever he came their way. As he grew older he managed to remember the different doors behind which the women were to be found, and nearly every morning, just after the breakfast pipes sounded, he would clamber up a steep stone staircase to the long balcony where he was accustomed to receive his favourite drink. Going up to the first door at which he knew he would be welcomed, he would strike it with his fore-foot, and continue down the whole length of the passage, knocking at the doors till his wants were satisfied, though he never stopped at any door where he had met with a repulse."
There is much interesting reminiscence of sport, and of the ways of wild Scotch deer, in the chapters devoted to this branch of the author's subject, and the illustrations are full of life and the spirit of the moor and mountain; but we pass
from the story of our largest native deer to that of the smallest. The roebuck has not found many historians ; but Mr. Millais does ample justice to its beauty, its cleverness, and its claim to further protection in the wilder parts of England. The author has evidently a special liking for these little deer, and his sketches and finished pictures of roe and their haunts are among some of the best in the book, especially the beautiful fall-page picture of "Roe Swimming" (p. 195), "Roe Digging Funguses" (p. 176), and their playing rings in the woods of Cawdor Castle. Round this ancient home of story and legend the thick woods are full of roe, which are carefully preserved by Lord Cawdor. In these woods the roe have regular playgrounds, and as we do not remember to have seen any account of this, we quote Mr. Millais's description :—
"Among the most interesting things in natural history I have ever seen are the 'roe-rings' in the big wood near Cawdor Castle. There is no doubt that these regular playing.grounds have been in use for centuries, and the roe have been running in these identical circles probably since the last glacial period. There were about six good rings when I visited the ground and made sketches. Three of these had simply been beaten into a track by the thousands of little feet that had used them. One perfect circle under some beech-trees half a mile from the Castle had a diameter of about 20 ft. Another was situated outside the wood in the corner of a grass park, near to a stone wall; and another might be described as a double ring, for it took the form of a figure of eight, there being a fir and an ash tree growing, one in each loop. The roe galloped in and out along the lines of the figure. These circles are most used in early summer at daybreak, and Sutherland, the head keeper, tells me that scarcely a morning passes without there being one or two roe playing in the rings, and sometimes there is quite a party of them."
Part of the author's object, as shown in the title of the book, is to give an account of the horns of British deer. Horn-lore is a branch of the natural history of sport familiar enough to the nobility of Germany and Austria, in whose forests gigantic heads have matured yearly for centuries and been transferred to their castle walls by generation after generation of princely hunters. But Mr. Millais has compiled and illus- trated an authoritative and most interesting record of the horn growth and measurements of British deer from famous heads preserved in Scotch and Irish castles and English country seats. Owners of deer-parks should examine the drawings of enormous heads grown at Warnham Court, in Sussex, and study the methods by which the late Mr. F. M.
Lucas obtained stags weighing 31 at., with antlers palmated and cupped like the great heads of Germany. This book is
full of interest to the general reader and of especial value to the owners of deer-parks. If the latter will consult its pages they may much enhance the quality of their deer and enlarge the scope of their interests in possessing them.
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