26 CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 



Anciently the terms applicable to hinds were, — 

 the first year, a calf; the second year, a brocket's 

 sister ; the third year, a hind. 



In our country we call them in the second year a 

 hearst, and in the third year a young hind.* 



All my readers are familiar with the park or 

 fallow deer (buck, doe, and fawn), which were 

 accounted beasts of chase, though not beasts of 

 forest, and most of them with the far nobler animal 

 of which I am treating ; those which are still found 

 wild in Devon and Somerset differ in no respect, or 

 at all events very slightly, from the animal to which 

 the stalker is indebted for his exciting sport in the 

 Highlands ; and the antlered monarchs which are 

 still to be found gracing the royal parks of Windsor 

 and Richmond, and at Badminton, Woodstock, etc., 

 etc. 



Generally speaking, the stag and hind are in 

 colour upon the neck, back, sides, and flanks, of a 

 reddish brown. The face is of the same colour, 

 shaded off with a grey or ashen hue upon and about 

 the jaws. A dark brown stripe of wiry hair extends 

 from the top of the neck, between the ears, to the 



* These terms, though doubtless correct, are quite obsolete in 

 modern hunting parlance — male deer being merely differentiated as 

 ' young male deer,' ' three or four-year-olds,' and ' good stags ' ; the 

 word ' hearst,' again, is never used on Exmoor. — L, J. B. 



