[Pl. 80.]]
Red Deer Hind.
Female Deer have no indication of antlers.

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[Pl. 81.]][K 129.
Roe Buck.
Capreolus capraea.

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It is in the localities described by the author just quoted that we have still the best chance of studying the Red Deer under natural conditions, though there have naturally been some changes since his classic "Wild Sports of the Highlands" was first published in 1845. But the southerner, as we have hinted, has still a prospect of meeting with the noble beast on Exmoor and in Hampshire, to say nothing of the tamer herds in parks. To get a good view of these, they should be approached with a pretence of unconcern: they can often be well observed from a road at a few yards' distance without arousing their suspicions, whereas a few steps towards them on the greensward will cause them to bolt.

Respecting the large numbers of Deer that formerly existed in the south, there is an illuminating reminiscence mentioned by Gilbert White. He says that an old keeper assured him on information from his father, head-keeper of Wolmer Forest, "that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal regard. For she came out of the great road at Lippock, which is just by, and, reposing herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying about half a mile to the east of Wolmer Pond and still called Queen's Bank, saw with great complacency and satisfaction the whole herd of Red Deer brought by the keepers along the vale before her, consisting then of about five hundred head. A sight this worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign!" Even more striking is the confession of a notorious deer-stealer in the New Forest, who assured the Rev. William Gilpin, author of "Forest Scenery," that in five years he had killed on an average "not fewer than a hundred bucks a year."

It should be stated that the British examples of the Red Deer are considered to constitute a geographical race known as scoticus. The European range of the species extends from the Mediterranean to central Sweden and central Norway.