24 NOTES TO THE 



do not thrust their noses iinder water when they drink. There 

 is no doubt that it is very desirable for hunters and race-horses 

 to have large nostrils. Deer, when they are hardly pressed, run 

 with their mouth open, which a horse does not. I cannot 

 think that it would be necessary for an animal at sloiv work to 

 have its nostrils slit." 



Most deer and many antelopes have these curious tear-pits 

 under the eye. They contain a waxy secretion. The use of 

 this is probably sexual, as they rub the secretion on to the 

 boughs of trees, &c. 



A connoisseur in venison informs me that the venison of 

 the fallow deer, as a rule, is preferred to that of the red 

 deer, being finer grained and more delicate; but the flesh of 

 the two species seldom meets with fair comparison, inasmuch 

 as the fallow deer is generally shot in an inclosed park his 

 exact age and condition are carefully noted, and care is taken 

 to pick him off in his fullest perfection ; whereas the stag, 

 generally roaming at large in a forest or extensive woodland, is 

 killed at hazard and at random, his head alone guiding the rifle 

 in its selection. Ked deer venison, if of the proper age, season, 

 and fatness, is by many allowed to be second to no other. 



MAN-TRAPS AND SPRING-GUNS, p. 18. In Gilbert White's 

 time man-traps and spring-guns were probably set for the benefit 

 of the Waltham Blacks which he mentions. These instruments 

 were made illegal in 1826. I have in my museum a very fine speci- 

 men of a man-trap given me by Mr. James Wiseman, of Pagle- 

 sham, Essex. The drawing opposite is taken from a photograph of 

 two man-traps that belonged to my late friend Sir Robert Clifton, 

 then M.I', for Nottingham ; they act upon the principle of a 

 rat-trap, with very strong springs at each end, and inflicted 

 fearful wounds upon the human leg. Their size will be seen 

 from the height of Sir Robert's gamekeeper, who has his hand 

 upon the top of the trap. Sir Eobert put this man into one of 

 these traps and had a great difficulty to get him out again. In 

 the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford there are three very fine 

 specimens of man-traps, also a spring-gun. The spring-gun is 

 about the size of an old-fashioned navy pistol. It turns upon 

 a pivot ; wires were attached to it, which were suspended in 

 all directions among the bushes about the height of a man's 

 knee ; by a simple mechanism the gun revolved and went off 

 exactly in the direction of the wire which was touched by the 

 man's leg. Close to these traps in the Ashmolean museum is 

 the burnt end of a wooden stake, which was, without a doubt, 

 used at the martyrdom of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. 



