The Heart of the Wild: Nature Studies from Near and Far

by S. L. Bensusan

For once there was a keen hunter of roedeer in the district; a man who had shot game in the wonderful country lying between the Zambesi river and the Uganda Protectorate and was anxious to try his hand at the deer of his native land. Already he had secured fine heads of the larger deer, and now he was bent upon following the roe, and studying the habits of the ground game. Throughout the plantation roedeer changed their coats to the brown and yellow livery of the colder season; and it became hard for the experienced eye to follow their movements. They glided through the wood’s most shadowy places, lightly as the sun across a meadow in June; never a leaf stirred or a branch cracked beneath their tread, for the paths of their going and coming were marked.

Children making an excursion to the wood saw the circling tracks of the roedeer, and thought that they were fairy rings made by Queen Mab for her nightly revels. But the fairies were only the little deer who could see the children and yet remain unseen, and were never seriously disturbed by their stray visits. In May and June children were not allowed to enter the wood, for the does were with their babies then, and might have done an injury to intruders.

Through the heat of summer the deer were in the high hills, and in the autumn they were very shy. The hunter noticed these things. He loved the country, time was his own, and he chose a corner of the land from which he could mark some of the comings and goings of the roedeer, with the help of his strong glass. Then he waited all night among the corn stooks, enduring the cold and the mist with complete indifference; and as the dawn was breaking he surprised the roedeer’s father. The old buck gave two leaps and was off at a gallop. The hunter remained perfectly cool, his keen eye told him what allowance he must make for the pace; and when he fired the buck gave one last despairing jump into the air and fell dead. By the edge of the corn land the Young Roebuck, who had seen everything, lay low on the ground in an agony of terror, just as he crouched when the golden eagle of the mountain seized his sister in the previous year.

It was late November and the roedeer were growing very fat; they had grain, turnip roots and rowan berries, as well as the tender parts of trees and grasses to feed upon, and perhaps the quality of the food supply kept them to their old home, in spite of the danger that surrounded it. Now, the hunter knew the numbers and sizes of the wood’s inhabitants, and he secured two more bucks of first head before they lost their horns. And in January and February he shot several fat does, matching his cunning against theirs, and having no help save that of a well-trained dog.

He might have shot the Young Roebuck had he cared to, but the new horns had nothing more than the forward tine that shoots out in the second year, about two-thirds of the way from the base, and the hunter had no use for so small a head. With the end of February he left Scotland, and three summers had come to the land before he returned.

In his absence the wood remained undisturbed. A few roedeer were shot by farmers among the corn lands; in one very severe winter several were killed by poachers, but the young roebuck had escaped all trouble.

In his third year the backward tine had come between the forward one and the end of the point, and thereafter he was completely armed. He had learned to bark quite loudly, had fought for a doe and won her from her former master; he was a parent though without responsibilities, and was reckoned one of the most cunning deer of the woodland.

Though he travelled far and wide no trouble came his way, hooks and nets failed to snare him. Angry farmers, stalkers and owners of the young plantations to which he did so much harm could not reach him with their vengeance; he seemed to bear a charmed life. Even when he rested there was some avenue by which tidings of danger could find way to his brain and restore his full consciousness on the instant. His winter weight was over fifty pounds, and his antlers were over nine inches, though their shape had been spoiled in the days when they were no more than simple points.

The hunter came back to the Highlands in late August and pursued the red deer until they began to roar and seek the hinds. Then he went South, to return in January when the snow was on the ground, when the Highland world seemed given over to storms, and the roebuck had lost their horns. He sought his accustomed corner and waited to see the roedeer feeding. Very soon the glass revealed all things to him. He saw the doe come from the wood to enjoy the stock of roots that had been piled, by his direction, at the edge of the arable land. Presently a buck of the fourth year joined her—a fine heavy beast.

In other parts of the woodland he saw other roedeer, and he knew that severe weather had driven some of the red deer down from the high hills above him. But the first pair of deer always captivated his attention. He could not have known that they were old friends, and that he had spared that same buck when his horns were hardly formed. Perhaps he was attracted by the elaborate pains this buck and doe took to avoid observation, by the way in which the buck pushed his companion forward as an advance guard, and disappeared at the first sign or sound of danger, leaving her to follow undirected. For days he endeavoured to get near them, using a well-trained hound, watching in the neighbourhood of their rings, even employing Donald to aid him in the quest.