THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



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CHAPTER I. 



THE HOME OF THE WILD RED DEER. 



About me round I saw 

 Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains. 

 And liquid lapse of murmuring streams. — Milton. 



The first view of the home of the wild red deer 

 which a visitor to the West Country obtains is from 

 the Great Western express, as it whirls him across 

 the wide expanse of level grass land lying between 

 Weston-super-Mare and Bridgwater. Far away 

 across the shining waters of Bridgwater Bay, 

 Dunkery Beacon towers high above the bold line of 

 hills which bounds the horizon, while in the near fore- 

 ground the wooded slopes of the Quantocks rise 

 sharply from the highly cultivated plain. These 

 hills and the thickly-wooded combes which seam 

 their rough, and in many places precipitous, sides 

 are the last stronghold in England of the wild red 

 deer. ^ 



When increased enclosure, more advanced agricul- 

 ture, and a prejudice easily to be understood against 

 the depredations of a large and mischievous animal 

 caused the destruction of the noble beast over almost 

 the whole of England, it was in the wild country of 



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