THE RED-DEER IN SUMMER 175 



forest there is a crofter's house, with byre, kail- 

 yard, and once cultivated field enclosed in a dry 

 stone wall. The place was occupied down till 

 a dozen years ago, but is now a melancholy ruin, 

 the more melancholy that traces of occupation, such 

 as faded prints from old illustrated papers hang- 

 ing half on, half off, the living room, are numerous 

 about it. .When I approached the enclosure five 

 deer were placidly cropping the grass within it. 

 Leaning upon the dry stone fence, I studied them 

 a stone -throw away, and they studied me with per- 

 fect composure. When I leapt the wall and pro- 

 ceeded towards the house they leisurely walked 

 away, and hopping over the enclosure with superb 

 ease trotted at a slow pace about eighty yards 

 up the hill which ascends steeply behind the house. 

 But beating the stones of the wall with a walking- 

 stick did not induce them to increase their distance, 

 and when I left the place at one side they calmly 

 returned to it from the other. All this in July. 



The tameness of the modern wild deer is no 

 doubt related to the fact that they are artificially 

 fed in winter, a thing made necessary by the main- 

 tenance in most of the forests of a larger stock 

 than they are able naturally to carry the year 

 through. But it is all very different, one is given 

 to understand, as the year ripens towards 

 September. Then the wild deer becomes himself 

 again, the creature we know in books and pictures, 

 to approach which it is necessary to crawl for 

 half a day with more than the care of a scout in 

 a Fenimore Cooper novel. Well, there are various 

 ways of approaching a red -deer, and crawling is 



