bad for spying, so 579 may be very near the real number of hinds 

 (i year old and above), as of course we missed seeing part of 

 them. Those who made the count are of this opinion. 



Again, as we had splendid weather for 1890 Spring counts, we Second Count 

 are pretty sure no two-year-old stags are in it, and we know there jggg stock, 

 are more than 957 hinds in the Forest. I believe the above series 

 of hinds is near the actual truth. 



If we make out a birth table of calves reared, as regulated by 

 our death lists, which were very heavy for several early years, we 

 obtain by the best of our calculation and judgment, the following 

 table of stags in Forest, two years' old and upwards, and we also 

 quote the counts. We believe in July, 1878, there were about 

 525 stags in the Forest. 



Stags. 



The stock of two-year-old stags to go into count of 1891, as 

 shown by our count and death rate, will be 155, unless something 

 abnormal happens. It is impossible to count* all the stags, if ji 

 they stood still to be counted which is often far from being ' 



the case we might leave out, say, 50 in such wide ground, 

 viz. : 27,500 acres, with big hills in it. 



No doubt we counted some stags twice over in 1881, perhaps 

 also in 1884 and in 1885, and in 1886 we probably missed seeing 

 a good many. But taking the balance of errors, the average stock 

 of Forest, by count, is 492 ; and by our calculation of births and 

 deaths the average stock of Forest comes out 487. Estimates 



Taking the whole ground, including Ardfin, average by count 

 is 687 stags, and by estimate 677 stags. 



We have unusual confidence in our count of 1889534 stags, 

 it " came off" remarkably well, no doubt we missed some, but we 



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