FALLOW DEER. 3 



can hardly doubt that they are a part of our 

 old indigenous fauna, which now survives 

 only in a few enclosed preserves. The wild 

 white cattle at Chillingham, the red deer on 

 the Scotch moors, and these pretty does and 

 fawns in Woolney Park, all trace back their 

 ancestry, I believe, to the time when England 

 was clad by one almost unbroken sheet of 

 oaks and beeches, and still earlier to the time 

 when a great belt of land connected it with 

 the Continent from Holland to Portugal. 

 Even the veriest Red Radical like myself 

 may well share John Mill's hope that the 

 spread of agriculture and political economy 

 may never succeed in improving these dear 

 dumb friends and pensioners of ours off the 

 face of the earth. They are one of the beau- 

 tiful links which bind us to the prae-human 

 past ; and I hope we may hand them on as 

 part of our common heritage to those who 

 will follow us hereafter in a higher and more 

 human future. 



Evolutionism, it often seems to me, throws 



B 2 



