Photo by the Duchess of Bedford] [Woburn Abbey.
YOUNG MARSH-DEER.
A very elegant South American species. The main colour is a bright chestnut, with the lower part of the legs black. The insides of the ears are filled with white hair, looking like silver filigree.
The Axis, or Chital Deer of India, is the most striking example. It lives in the hot jungles, where it is the usual food of the tiger. Yet it has been transferred to the forests of France and to English parks, and not only lives, but breeds and increases in numbers. It is kept in this country mainly at Woburn Abbey, and at Haggerston Castle, in Northumberland. In France and Germany herds of axis deer have been maintained long enough to observe a curious and noteworthy incident in acclimatisation. The axis deer breeds naturally in October, after the Indian rainy season. This habit, if persisted in in Europe, would expose the fawn to the rigours of the French or English winter. Gradually and after some time the herds become irregular in the time of reproduction, and later produce the fawns in June, at the time which is best suited to their survival. This is a real instance of acclimatisation.
The Japanese Deer, or Sika, was introduced into the park at Powerscourt by Viscount Powerscourt some thirty years ago. Now it is one of the commonest of recently introduced park-deer both in this country and in France. The venison is excellent, and the herds are prolific. The stags are small, but very strong, and at Powerscourt always get the better of the red deer stags, and sometimes carry off their hinds. Wapiti Deer are kept in several English parks, but so far the Sambar has proved a failure. Hog-deer and Chinese Water-deer do very well both in England and France.
But it is in New Zealand that the best results have been obtained with imported deer. The English Red Deer, some of which were originally sent out by the Prince Consort, reinforced by some of the same species bred in Australia, have become indigenous. They grow far faster and to a larger size than those on the Scotch moors, and rival the great stags of the Carpathians. The antlers also increase in size at an abnormal rate. Licences are regularly issued to stalk and shoot these deer, which, like the brown trout and the pheasant, are now among the stock of established wild fauna. Moose and a few Sambar stags and herds have also been turned out in New Zealand. The latter are said to be doing well.
There is no particular reason why the deer of cold countries should not be interchanged; they seem to have the natural adaptability of oxen. But it is not a little surprising that the species from warm climates should flourish in damp and cold ones. The axis deer would be a real addition to the fauna of the great European forests, if it is found that it survives the winter snows without some form of artificial shelter. No one seems to have considered the advisability of introducing the mule-deer into the Central European woods. It is a much finer animal than the fallow buck, and the venison is excellent. In those woods where fallow deer are preserved in a wild state, as on many of the German Emperor's sporting-estates, the mule-deer would be a far more ornamental animal. Few people know what immense herds of red and fallow deer, as well as of wild boars, still exist, under careful preservation, in the forests of the great German, Austrian, and Russian princes, and in the royal forests of their respective countries.
Photo by the Duchess of Bedford] [Woburn Abbey.