730 



DEER-FORESTS 



DEFFAND 



though not until 1860 was the attention of scholars 

 directed to its great importance by Mr Bradshaw, 

 the librarian. It contains St John's and parts of 

 the other three gospels (in mainly the Vulgate 

 version of St Jerome), the Apostles' Creed, and a 

 fragment of an office for the visitation of the sick, 

 with a Gaelic rubric. On the blank leaves of the 

 MS. , in the handwriting of the early part 1 of the 

 12th century, are several Gaelic entries relating 

 to the endowments of the Columban monastery. 

 These notes are of the highest interest as the 

 oldest specimens of Scottish Gaelic, and only less 

 interesting is the Gaelic ornamentation enriching 

 the MS. See Dr John Stuart's edition of the Boole 

 of Deer (Spalding Club, 1869), and Dr Joseph 

 Anderson's Scotland in Early Christian Times 

 (1881). 



Deer-forests, tracts of country devoted to 

 the red deer or fallow deer, either for sport- 

 ing or for breeding purposes. The requisites of a 

 Scotch deer-forest are a great extent of quiet 

 ground, high mountain tops and corries, plenty of 

 moorland and pasture. There is now little wood 

 in Scotch deer-forests, and almost all other game, 

 and cattle and sheep, must be excluded. One- 

 tenth of the heather in a deer-forest should be 

 burned every year, the heather living ten or twelve 

 years ; and in each forest a sanctuary should be 

 provided. The forest of Mar is 80,000 acres in 

 extent; Blackmount, 70,300; Reay, 64,600; then 

 come fourteen of from 51,000 to 30,000; whilst 

 the rest are smaller, some as low as 10,000 acres. 

 The requisites of an English deer-park, on the 

 other hand, are wood, lawn, with sufficient under- 

 wood, rough grass and bracken, in an inclosed 

 and undulating country of rich soil. In Scot- 

 land, deer-stalking has largely increased during 

 the 19th century. In 1812 there were only five 

 forests ; in 1888 there were 111. In England, since 

 1750, when fox-hunting superseded deer-hunting, 

 deer are kept chiefly for breeding and ornament, 

 being sometimes fed in stalls. There are, however, 

 several packs of staghounds which hunt the red deer 

 e.g. in the high ground of Somerset and Devon. 

 Before the civil war there were 700 parks in Eng- 

 land ; now only 300, of which only 30 have red deer. 

 Among the great Scotch forests may be noted : in 

 Aberdeenshire, Ballochbuie, Mar, Glen Tanner, Glen 

 Muick ; in Inverness-shire, Abernethy and Glen- 

 more, Rothiemurchus, Ben Alder, Gaick and 

 Ruthven, Glen Feshie, Glen Strath Farrar, Guis- 

 achan, Invermarkie ; in Argyllshire, Blackmount; 

 in Perthshire, Athole, Fealar, Glen Bruar, Glen 

 Artney, Rannoch ; in Ross-shire, Dundonnell, 

 Strathconan, Torridon, Kintail, Applecross, Wyvis, 

 Diebidale, Kinlochewe, Morsgail, Kildermorie, 

 Glen Carron, Park ; in Sutherlandshire, Dunrobin, 

 Glendhu, Loch Inver, Reay. The deer-forests 

 of Scotland occupy a space of nearly 2,000,000 

 acres. They are occupied chiefly by English noble- 

 men and others, not the owners. The best-known 

 English parks are Bridge in Sussex, Talton in 

 Worcestershire, Northwich in Cheshire, Duncombe 

 in Yorkshire, Eastwell in Kent, Donington in Leices- 

 ter, and the royal park of Windsor. Originally, 

 in both England and Scotland, the king's nobles 

 and the church held special forest jurisdictions of 

 the most oppressive kind. Thus, in Scotland, the 

 forester might forfeit cattle and other goods found 

 within the forest. In England, the Norman law- 

 yers pretended that all game belonged to the king. 

 King John had 18 forests, 13 chases, 781 parks. A 

 chase was an open forest, not subject to special 

 forest law ; a park was an inclosed chase on the 

 land of the owner ; a purlieu was an addition made 

 to an old forest. The Charta de Foresta dis- 

 afforested large tracts of land, and prevented the 

 arbitrary creation of forests. In Scotland, the 



Stewarts passed many statutes for the protection 

 of deer, and so late as 1680, in the case of Fas- 

 kally, the Court of Session recommended the king 

 not to grant new forests, as hurtful to the lieges. 

 In 1850 the Duke of Athole claimed a right to enter 

 on the neighbouring estates to recover deer, but 

 this was not permitted. It is the opinion of many 

 that deer-forests have displaced crofters and sheep 

 in the Scotch Highlands. This was denied by a 

 Select Committee of the House of Commons, who 

 reported on the Game Laws in 1872. An act on 

 the valuation of deer-forests for purposes of assess- 

 ment was passed in 1887 : there was a government 

 report showing the area and rents of the Scottish 

 deer-forests in 1891-92. 



See Shirley, Forest Laws; books on the English 

 deer-parks by Shirley (1867) and Whittaker (1892); 

 Macdonald's Cattle, Sheep, and Deer ( 1872 ) ; Macrae's 

 Handbook of Deer-stalking ( Edin. 1880 ) ; the Keport of 

 the Crofters Commission ( 1884 ) ; Johnston's large map 

 of Scottish deer-forests (1888)'; and Grimble's Deer- 

 Forests of Scotland ( 1896 ). 



Deer Mouse (Hesperomys), often called Vesper 

 Mouse, a genus of American rodents representing in 

 the New World the Old-World mice, from which 

 they differ only in trivial characters. The white- 

 footed or deer mouse (H. leucopus) is found over the 

 greater part of North America in several varieties. 

 It is an animal about 3 inches in length, of a very 

 variable but frequently fawn colour ; sometimes 

 arboreal, sometimes burrowing ; feeding chiefly on 

 corn and nuts, which it stores for winter. See 

 MOUSE. 



Deer-stealing. See GAME-LAWS, POACHING. 



I>''!S, a town of Transylvania, on the Szamos, 

 37 miles NNE. of Klausenburg by rail. Pop. 6191. 



Defamation. See LIBEL. 



Default. A party to an action is in default 

 when he fails to comply with the rules of procedure. 

 If the defendant, for example, fails to appear to 

 the writ, the plaintiff' may have judgment against 

 him ; if the plaintiff fails to deliver a statement of 

 claim, the defendant may apply to have the action 

 dismissed. Judgment by default may be set aside, 

 on such terms as to costs, &c. as the court thinks 

 just. In Scotland, a decree by default may be 

 recalled by reclaiming note, but after the time for 

 reclaiming has expired, an action of reduction must 

 be brought to set it aside. 



Defeasance, DEED OF, in English law, an 

 instrument which defeats the force or operation of 

 some other deed or estate ; and that which in the 

 same deed is called a condition, in a separate deed 

 is called a defeasance. 



Defender Of the Faith, a title conferred in 

 1521 on Henry VIII. by Pope Leo X. as a reward 

 for writing his Assertio septem Sacramentorum, in 

 answer to Luther. The title was afterwards con- 

 firmed by parliament ( 35 Henry VIII. chap. 3 ), and 

 has ever since been used by the sovereigns of this 

 country. The corresponding title in Spain is 'Most 

 Catholic,' and in France was 'Most Christian King.' 



Defenders, a Catholic association in Ireland 

 (1784-98), the opponents of the Peep o' Day Boys. 



Deffand, MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMROND, MAR- 

 QUISE DU, one of the most brilliant letter- writers of 

 the 18th century, was a member of a noble Bur- 

 gundian house, and was born in 1697. She was 

 educated in a convent in Paris, and as a girl became 

 famous for her wit, audacity, and beauty. In 1718 

 she married the Marquis du Deffand, from whom 

 she shortly afterwards separated. She led a life of 

 gallantry for a number or years, and became a con- 

 spicuous figure in the literary society of Paris, her 

 salon in the Rue Saint Dominique being a favourite 

 resort of the philosophes. She was a correspondent 



