1 8 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



between the dates mentioned ; but since then other 

 instances have been recorded, and the writer not 

 many years ago saw a Httle spotted calf not more 

 than a week or so old quite at the end of September. 

 The little fellow was lying in the deep heather in the 

 Deer Park, just where his mother no doubt had 

 pushed him down and bidden him lie still, and still 

 he lay, while a hundred or more horses thundered 

 by. The writer stood by till the rush was past to 

 prevent his being ridden over, and then looking 

 round he caught sight of a hind trotting back- 

 wards and forwards as if in great anxiety just 

 by the slope of the hill into Woodcock Combe ; 

 the moment he left the spot the hind cantered 

 straight up to where her calf had been left and 

 lay down. 



It is the common habit of a hind even with a much 

 bigger calf — they frequently run with the hinds for 

 nine or ten months — to make the calf lie down if 

 hounds are on the line, and to wait close by so that 

 hounds may catch a view of herself instead of killing 

 the calf. 



It is a point much disputed whether a hind has 

 her first calf at three or four years old, but the 

 better opinion seems to be in favour of the earlier 

 date ; but when once she begins to breed she rarely, 

 if ever, misses a year until she attains a great age. 

 Many directions are contained in some of the 

 treatises on stag-hunting as to hunting only yeld or 

 barren hinds at certain periods of the year, and it 



