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



county, though not very many." " The fact of their 

 breedmg, however, m Cornwall at that date is significant, 

 showing that there must have been a good deal of wild 

 ground well suited to their habits. 



Years after Carew's " Survey" had appeared there were 

 still plenty of wild red-deer in Hatfield Chace, and Prynne 

 has left a graphic account of the mode in which they were 

 hunted there in the time of James I. He describes how, 

 for the amusement of Prince Henry, a large herd w^as sur- 

 rounded and driven down to the Trent, where they were 

 forced to take the water, their antlers resembling, when 

 close together, a moving forest ; how they were pursued in 

 boats by the Prince and his companions, and how the 

 fattest were then selected and killed, and drawn on shore 

 with ropes. • 



The precise date at which the red-deer became extinct 

 in that w41d Chace could only be approximately surmised, 

 for the nature of the country was such as to favour their 

 existing there for a period long subsequent to the event 

 described by Prynne. t 



In Lancashire, in the great forests of Bowland and 

 Blackburnshire, there were red-deer until the commence- 

 ment of the present century. The last herd was destroyed 

 there in 1805.1 



In Gloucestershire, red-deer were introduced into the 

 Forest of Dean in 1842, when two stags and four hinds 

 from Woburn were enlarged. They increased slowly until 

 1849, when in consequence of the frequent and serious 

 poaching affrays which took place, and the great difficulty 

 in preserving them, all the deer in this forest were ordered 

 to be killed. 



Gilbert White's description of the red-deer in Wolmer 

 Forest, Hampshire, must be familiar to everyone. In 

 Queen Anne's time, he says, they numbered about five 

 hundred head ; but some years before he commenced his 



* Op. cit. ed. Tonkm, 4to., 1811, p. 77. 



t See Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (Pell Records), p. 293, 



t Whitaker, History of Whalley, vol. i., p. 205. 



