DEER-SHOOTING. 291 



carried out My readers will probably recollect Gilbert 

 White's interesting account of the removal of the deer 

 from Woolmer Forest, while the spot known as " the 

 Slaughter " on the Wye between Ross and Monmouth 

 marks the place where thousands of the Dean Forest 

 deer perished miserably, mute witnesses to the miser- 

 able weakness of a Government which could not 

 protect its own property. Like these two forests the 

 New Forest was soon emptied of all its sylvan in- 

 habitants. But though the two former still remain 

 without deer, the New Forest is restocked. The 

 fact is that within the limits of the Forest proper 

 and all around it were, and are still, large woods, which, 

 being private property, were not subject to the 

 operations of the Act. In these woods a certain 

 number of deer sheltered, and when the activity of 

 their persecutors ceased they returned to the Forest. 



I estimate the stock there now at five hundred 

 head of fallow-deer at the very least, with about a 

 score of red and a few, very few, roe-deer. To 

 check their increase two methods are employed. 

 Firstly, there are the New Forest Deerhounds, which 

 pack annually accounts for about seventy deer. 

 Secondly, there are the forest-keepers, who, with their 

 chief, who manages the Forest for the Crown, shoot 

 at least as many more. It was to this gentleman's 

 courtesy I was indebted for a day's doe-shooting one 

 winter morning some years ago. 



Accompanied by a groom, mounted like myself on 

 a polo pony, I turned up at the Queen's House, 

 Lyndhurst, on the loth of February, 18 , about 



u 2 



