CHAPTER VII. 



ROE-DEER SHOOTING. 



IT must, I think, be a matter for regret in every 

 sportsman's mind that this quaint little deer should 

 have so nearly disappeared from the British Isles. I 

 must confess that I was under the impression that 

 with the exception of a few in the New Forest, it 

 was entirely extinct in England, although plentiful in 

 the Highlands of Scotland. I recently read in The 

 Field, however, that " there are plenty of roe-deer in 

 Dorsetshire, in the Blackmore Vale country " ; and 

 the author of that most delightful sporting book, 

 " Short Stalks," writes to me, under date 7th April, 

 1893, as follows : " I have introduced them (i.e., roe- 

 deer) successfully into Epping Forest, and an Easter 

 Monday tripper of an enquiring mind may see them 

 any day." 



Still, to the bulk of our English sportsmen, the roe 

 is an unknown animal, and that it should be so is, I 

 must say, a wonder to me. In the first place they can 

 be cheaply bought on the Continent ; secondly, they 

 are not given greatly to wander from any fair-sized 

 wood where they are turned down ; thirdly, they do 

 little, if any, damage to crops ; fourthly, while they 



