NEW FOREST VENISON. 273 



ship's death to rent under Lady Stuart De Rothesay, 

 out of the bucks given to me by the Crown, never 

 less than one a year and sometimes more — out of 

 those deer brought me by the keepers, I never had 

 what could properly be termed a fat buck. Such a 

 name, in fact, had these warrant or rather unwarrant- 

 able deer obtained for the forest venison, that when 

 Lord Seymour's Cruelty Act came into force for the 

 " removal," as he tenderly expressed it, of the New 

 Forest deer, and the venison was all to be sold, people 

 turned up their noses at it, and said it was not worth 

 buying even at fourpence per pound. I knew better, 

 from having seen the best bucks that used to go the 

 Lord — I speak not irreligiously, my good readers! — the 

 Lord Duncan only knew and knows where; and when 

 I heard that all the bucks were for sale, I immediately 

 jumped at giving any price they chose to fix on them, 

 provided I might select and kill each buck myself, 

 undertaking to give the highest value set on them 

 for any buck I killed. I thought this but fair to the 

 interests of the Crown, as then if, in mistake, 1 killed 

 a wrong deer, the smart would fall on me. The first 

 warrant that was given me was one on Hall of Whitley 

 Ridge, and I went over to look at his brouse bucks. 

 The brouse buck was a deer fed by " lop " round the 

 keeper's house ; and, having been thus cared for in 

 winter, Avas usually the fattest. The buck that had 

 got into the enclosures when a fawn, or was bred in 

 the wood by a doe accidentally got in there, was 

 termed an enclosure buck, and was usually the largest 

 and heaviest deer; but the heather buck, Avho fre- 

 quented the lawns on the open heath, was, in my 

 opinion, though not the fattest or the largest, still 

 infinitely the best flavoured venison. 



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