i62 CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 



the extinction of the deer, and it may be safely 

 asserted that there is not a single specimen to be 

 found at the present moment either in the south of 

 Devon or in Cornwall. That they existed in the 

 last-mentioned countr}- until a comparatively recent 

 period there can be no doubt, although their exter- 

 mination is now effectually completed. Such would 

 not have been the case if the taste which formed one 

 prominent feature in Dutch William's character had 

 animated his royal successors. We read that this 

 monarch imposed a fine of six hundred pounds on 

 Lady Athlone for having killed six stags at different 

 times near Loo. and salted them down for her 

 ser\'ants' use. As the red man retreats before his 

 palefaced brethren to wilder prairies and more 

 secure fastnesses, so the deer have sought, as their 

 last abiding place, the wastes of Exmoor and the 

 purlieus of the forest. Within fifty years {teste Mr 

 Kingsley^) the barren tracts and woods around 

 Bagshot sheltered the wild red deer, but there they 

 have ceased to exist. Until recently they were 

 preser\xd in the New Forest,+ but the order for 

 their extermination there has gone forth, and is, I 

 believe, executed, and there is probably no place in 



* ' Miscellanies,' voL ii. p. 230. 

 + A few red deer still survive. 



