CHAPTER VI 



NEW ZEALAND RED DEER 



FROM the Liverpool docks to the " Long White 

 Cloud " is a far cry ; but the wandering sportsman 

 will find in New Zealand more to make him feel at 

 home than in many a country closer to his doors. 

 The Misses Dare and Marie Studholme greet him with 

 the same generous dental display from every third 

 shop window he passes as they do in the streets of 

 London themselves ; the very names of the streets 

 and towns, in the South Island at any rate, if he be 

 one of the fortunate minority hailing from the north 

 of the Tweed, bring back to him the scenes with which 

 he is most familiar ; the accent of those whom he 

 meets falls on his ear with an insistence the more 

 pleasing from the fact that he last heard it so many 

 thousands of miles away ; whilst if he be a deer-stalker 

 he may find without much difficulty many another 

 addicted to his favourite pursuit and well read in the 

 classics of a sport which has no equal. 



Fifty years ago there was not a stag in New 

 Zealand ; now it is one of the finest deer-stalking 

 countries in the world, and the heads obtained there 

 would, alas! put to shame every deer forest in 

 Scotland. 



90 



