234 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



swamps and feeding-places from the dry spots in the woods, 

 where they are invariably bred. If they did not do so, they in 

 their earlier hours could not reach the places wherein their food 

 by suction lies ; of that I am fully convinced. I never knew 

 the young in number to exceed four, and when the young are 

 so carried from place to place, and put down at a given spot, I 

 think one old bird always remains with the first that is so trans- 

 ported to see the site being strange that it does not stray 

 away. 



What an idle dream this is of mine, as to the forest in the 

 Royal state ! Away with every gentle thought, and in the 

 month of July let us take a real glance at the condition of the 

 New Forest under the "New Forest Deer Removal Bill," a 

 beautifully worded clap-trap beneath which to perpetrate the 

 destruction of the innocent deer, and the most cruel hardships 

 on the country people. Against this measure I presented while 

 in my place in Parliament many memorials to the Crown signed 

 by magistrates, clergymen, farmers, and the labouring poor, 

 praying that the deer might be permitted to remain. The 

 forest laws regarding the deer governed the pasturage of other 

 cattle, the time they were to be turned out and taken in ; the 

 rights of the deer also directed the method of turf -cutting, 

 rushes, etc. As a general law, the poor in the vicinity could 

 only take what they could get as to wood, "by hook or by 

 crook ; " they were allowed to cut no wood, whence has arisen 

 the now common adage. Deer are very delicate feeders, and 

 though the cattle, even under certain restrictions, used to eat 

 them out of their sweet grass on the lawns, the deer did no harm 

 to the coarser grazing of the cattle, for they would rather starve 

 than eat the rougher herbage on which the cattle feed. I said 

 a good deal of this in the House of Commons in defence of the 

 deer and of the poor, but my good friend Mr. Hume for once 

 deserted the public cause, and he, with a host of others, sided 

 against me. I remember his dwelling much on the " dangerous 

 power the Crown had, in these civilised days, to turn out and 

 keep to an unlimited extent, so as to eat up all the pasturage 



