STAG HUNTING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have been reading with great interest the corre- spondence which has been appearing in your columns on the subject of stag hunting in England, since I have hoped to learn from it the solution of a problem with which. I have the misfortune to be faced.
Some years ago the fallow deer in a park were killed off, with the exception of one doe that escaped to the woods outside the park. She was later fortunate enough to find a mate, and the number of her descendants has been augmented by deer escaped from other parks. Last winter there were twenty deer or more, and this year has I suppose produced a further natural increase. The deer range over an area of about two thousand acres of thick woodland. They do a great deal of damage to the woods by eating young trees and underwood, and still more damage to farm crops.. I have seen a field of mangels after a visit from them, and it looked as though a flock of sheep had been folded on it.
I am afraid they must be destroyed, or at any rate greatly reduced in number. There are several methods by which this might be done. (1) Keepers and tenant farmers might be told to shoot at them with shot guns if and when they, see them. (2) They might be stalked by one man with a rifle, the methods of Ross-shire being introduced into Sussex. (3) They might be driven to concealed guns. (4) They might be fed in some spot where a concealed gun might get a shot at them. Finally, (5) they might be hunted with hounds.
(1) does not commend itself to me. I have seen the result. (2) is extremely difficult. The woods are thick, and full of wind eddies, and it is very difficult to get a shot, especially as only a down-hill shot is safe in country like this, with farms, villages, and even towns within the range of a rifle. (8) involves an army and intelligent co-operation on the part of the deer. I have seen them break back through a line of men ten yards apart. (4) might work once or twice ; but in any case, they prefer to find their own food, and I have found no bait certain to attract them. (5) has not been tried, but seems the only method likely to succeed.
I must explain that the woodlands are scattered ,over about fifteen square miles of country, and that the deer are very wild indeed.—I am, Sir, &c.,
RICHARD. BICHERSTETIL
Agmerhurst House, Ashburnham, Sussex.
[Probably the quickest and surest method would be a combination of (2)- and (4)—"still-hunting" by a good rifle shot (who would soon learn to adapt Ross-shire strategy to Sussex tactics), supplemented by lying up for the deer at places where they were known to be coming into the crops, in the evening or the early morning. (1) and -(3) should at all costs be avoided ; either method would result in many deer getting away wounded.—En. Spectator.]
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