CHAPTER XIX 



(f 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 confessed 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 attached 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 disinclination with the knowledge, 

 that, perhaps if I did not kill the doe, her sufferings would be 

 prolonged by some unskilful hand. Yesterday, the 10th of 

 August 1853, in Boldrewood 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 gap in the 

 palings, in which latter place the keepers had been with their 

 hounds the preceding day, my man suddenly put to me the 



