i 



338 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



been better but for the following fact, which utterly 

 put to flight my superstition as to the fairies. A rifle 

 ball had struck him over the hip, and glancing from 

 the set of the ribs on the backbone, it had run within 

 the skin to an inch above the tip or wither of the 

 shoulder, and there lodged under the skin of the 

 neck. On examination, the appearance of the graze 

 indicated that it must have been received just about 

 the time when, from the keepers' account, the buck 

 which my hound followed across the road intoHomesley 

 Wood had been changed into a doe, and as- such, to 

 their eyes, fired on by them. I feel sure, civil to 

 them as I always am, that the ftiiries did not change 

 the keepers' doe into a buck to deceive me; and 

 therefore my conclusion very naturally is, that the 

 keepers, in disobedience of orders, shot at a deer a 

 year older than they had authority to do, and fla- 

 grantly disobeyed the commands of the Commission. 

 I am confident that on Wotton and Homesley they 

 did so, not only from finding prohibited aged male 

 deer dead, their deaths caused by rifle balls, but 

 because I have missed four good bucks from those 

 Avalks that, in obedience to orders, I had spared a 

 dozen times over, and should have been glad to have 

 bought in season at a shilling a pound. This is 

 too bad, and only goes to prove how much a head 

 keeper or ranger over all has been and is needed. 

 I had no idea till August, 1853, that the fawns of 

 does killed in July would live without the mother; 

 but I have found two solitary but very strong male 

 fawns, in the best possible condition, and their sto- 

 machs filled with green food, Avithout a vestige of 

 milk, like old deer, in the strongest health and vigour. 

 I killed the doe belonging to one of these fawns in 



