Mr. J. E. Harting on Forest Animals. 77 



The only Euminants still to be found wild in our forests 

 are Deer, of which we have three species. 



There was a time when we had also wild cattle in the 

 forest, but those days have long gone by, and we can now 

 only judge of their appearance from the few scattered 

 herds which are carefully preserved in certain parks. 



To turn, then, to the Deer : the noblest of them all is 

 the Red-deer, now almost entirely confined to the High- 

 lands, and a few wild districts in Ireland ; for, with the 

 exception of Martindale Fells, in Westmoreland, and a 

 certain portion of Somersetshire and North Devon, where 

 it still roams in a wild state, it is not to be met with in 

 England except in a few enclosed parks. And on Martin- 

 dale Fells, I am informed, the few remaining deer are in a 

 state of semi-domestication. Still they are the original 

 descendants of our wild red-deer, and form a pleasing link 

 of association with the past. 



Only a hundred years ago there were red-deer in Corn- 

 wall. When Borlase published his Natural History of that 

 county, he wrote : '* Red-deer are seldom seen in this 

 county ; some, however, make their appearance for a time 

 on the hilly downs about Bodmin, whence they haunt the 

 woods upon the moors. They are found in greater plenty 

 in the north, betwixt Launceston and Stratton, as if 

 they were apprehensive of wanting room to range if they 

 advanced into the narrow western parts." ''' 



Carew, who published his " Survey of Cornwall " in 1602, 

 regarded the red-deer then in Cornwall as stragglers from 

 the adjoining county of Devon, f and no doubt many of 

 them were stragglers ; but Tonkin, in his edition of this 

 Survey published in 1811, observes: "We have some 

 red-deer that breed in the inland and eastern parts of the 



* Borlase, Nat. Hist. Cornwall, p. 288. 



t " Red deere this sliire breedeth none, but onely receive th such as 

 in the summer season range thither out of Devon : to whom the gentle- 

 men bordering on their haunt afford so coarse entertainment, that 

 without better pleading their lieeles, they are faine to dehver up 

 their carcases for a pledge to answere their trespasses." — " Survey of 

 Cornwall," p. 23. 



