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340 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



" The doe press'd to me, as the wild thing comes 



When hard-brow'd winter drives It to our doors. 

 And gentle, timid creatures seek our homes 



From forest depths and unfrequented moors. 

 I raised her face, and kissed it with delight ; 



Her eyes the stars that bless'd the silent night ; 

 Then, as we parted, still to meet again, 

 My soul confess'd a deep, sad sense of pain." 



The Last of the New Forest Deer.—G. F. B. 



Although the sport is magnificently fine and wild in 

 this lovely forest, there is a melancholy feeling at- 

 tached to the destruction of the deer, that strikes the 

 mind, particularly in many of its most beautiful 

 shades, when, underneath the spreading trees that 

 bend over its amber streams, the deer-hunter sees 

 impressed, for the last time, on the moist ground, the 

 footsteps of the last doe and fawn that shall ever 

 mirror in or drink of its waters again. It was said of 

 Robin Hood that, outlaw as he was, he would rather 

 fast than kill a doe ; and I confess that I hate to 

 lay the rifle in rest on a doe that is out of season. 

 It must be done, however, and I try to stifle disin- 

 clination with the knowledge, that perhaps, if I did 

 not kill the doe, her sufi'erings would be prolonged 

 by some unskilful hand. Yesterday, the 10th of 

 August, 1853, in Rolderwood Walk, while attending 

 on Druid, tracing where a deer had been in the night 

 in Holiday Hill enclosure, having entered from Home 

 Hill at a gnp in the palings, in which latter place the 

 keepers had been with their hounds the preceding 

 day, my man suddenly put to me the question of 



