THE RED DEER. 15 



a stately appearance.* There is an old keeper, now alive, named 

 Adams, whose great grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation 

 taken in 1635), grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the head 

 keepership of Wolmer forest in succession for more than a 

 hundred years. This person assures me, that his father has 

 often told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the 

 Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her 

 royal regard. For she came out of the great road at Lippock, 

 which is just by, and, reposing herself on a bank smoothed for 

 that purpose, lying about half a mile to the east of Wolmer pond, 

 and still called Queen's-bank, saw with great complacency and 

 satisfaction the whole herd of red deer brought by the keepers 

 along the vale before her, consisting then of about five hundred 

 head. A sight this worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign ! 

 But he further adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or, to 

 use his own expression, as soon as they began blacking, they 

 were reduced to about fifty head, and so continued decreasing 

 till the time of the late duke of Cumberland. It is now more 

 than thirty years ago that his highness sent down a huntsman, 

 and six yeomen-prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with gold, 

 attended by the stag-hounds, ordering them to take every deer 

 in this forest alive and to convey them in carts to Windsor. In 

 the course of the summer they caught every stag, some of which 

 showed extraordinary diversion; but, in the following winter, 

 when the hinds were also carried off, such fine chases were ex- 

 hibited as served the country people for matter of talk and won- 



the pheasants and allied genera ; and, even in the wild state, mule specimens have several 

 times been met with between the male pheasant and the female black grouse. There is 

 reason, however, to believe that these crossings only take place in localities where the male 

 black grouse have been destroyed. They are interesting, as indicative of the close affinity 

 between the genera tetrao and phasianus, and they sufficiently attest the absurdity of classifying 

 these, as some have done, as the types of two separate and distinct families. The males of most 

 polygamous birds are very careless about the welfare of their progeny, but this is not the case 

 with the black grouse"; for, when his females are sitting, and while his numerous brood continue 

 young and helpless, he acts as sentinel and keeps watch over the safety of them all. The young 

 begin to throw out the mature plumage some time before they are quite full grown, and the 

 males then separate from the rest and associate in small flocks or packs, continuing thus 

 together till the influence of the vernal season prompts them to disperse over the wilds, at which 

 time, as might be expected, very desperate battles continually take place among them. It will 

 be observed that in these habits, which are common to all the genuine tetraones, and certain 

 allied genera, a curious and highly interesting analogy may be traced with particular groups of 

 ruminant mammifers, an analogy which I believe has never heretofore been remarked. ED. 



* These noble and majestic animals, the red deer or stag (cervus elephas), a species truly 

 indigenous to the country (as its fossil remains abundantly show), are now comparatively very 

 few in any part of England ; but the case is different in the mountainous regions of North 

 Britain, where, especially on the duke of Athol's vast estates, in the central Grampians, immense 

 herds of them still roam unrestrained, the splendid and appropriate ornaments of that wild and 

 rugged country. In the south of England they can only be considered as park animals. ED. 



