1 8 RED DEER. 



needs a practised eye to find a firm 

 path between them. The turf is much cut 

 away for use as fuel ; it is stacked, roots 

 outwards, in heaps like haycocks. This fuel 

 has this advantage, that the ashes have an 

 agricultural value for drilling in with tur- 

 nips. But the holes where it is removed 

 become full of water, which stays all the 

 summer ; they are, in fact, so many bogs, 

 which horsemen should carefully avoid. 

 Wild ducks are fond of these shallow 

 ponds, for such they are — ponds thickly 

 covered by green aquatic growths. On the 

 higher slopes, where the heather has not 

 been burned, it rises high, thick, and dim- 

 cult to force a way through, so that the 

 wayfarer must follow the paths made by the 

 deer. Over these moors sheep, some bul- 

 locks, and ponies almost as wild as the 

 deer, wander freely. Such is the North 

 Forest, the centre of Eed Deer Land — the 

 home from which the red deer spread 

 abroad. Though called the North Forest, 



