38 NATURAL HISTORY 



were the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the 

 thickets or glades of The Holt 4 . 



At present the deer of The Holt are much thinned 



4 In the distinctness thus strongly stated to have existed between the 

 ranges of the fallow deer and the red deer there is, at first sight, some- 

 thing so remarkable as to induce a consideration of the subject as regards 

 the localities and the habits of the animals. 



Than The Holt and Wolmer Forest it is almost impossible for two 

 situations to be more dissimilar. The Holt is on the gault, and has all 

 the richness of meadow and nobleness of oak wood that distinguish that 

 formation. It consequently offered to the fallow deer, while they 

 remained on it, plentiful grazing, abundance of browzing, and open and 

 sheltered glades; advantages suited to the habits of that half domesti- 

 cated race, introduced into this country by man, and still requiring at his 

 hands care and protection. Wolmer Forest, on the lean and hungry 

 sand, scarcely affords any grass, and has no high covert; and the red 

 deer attached to it would have been limited for their provender almost 

 exclusively to the lichens, the heath tops, and the twigs of the very few 

 stunted bushes that occur here and there on its surface : retirement could 

 only have been obtained for them by plunging into the unfrequented 

 hollows interposed between its ridges. The more tender and exotic deer 

 was placed, and it might have seemed almost naturally, in the richer and 

 more sheltered forest of The Holt; the hardier and native race subsisted 

 on the coarse fare of the dreary and cheerless waste of Wolmer. Of the 

 two kinds, the one might have been regarded as approaching in some 

 degree towards the sheep ; while the other would more nearly have 

 resembled, in its enduring habits, the rein-deer or the roe. 



It is not, however, necessary to seek so far for the cause of the perti- 

 nacity with which the different deer adhered to their several ranges. 

 Deer generally, without reference to the habits of particular species, are 

 by no means given to wander from their accustomed haunts. A deer, 

 almost from the moment at which it is born, becomes one of the herd 

 to which its mother belongs, and remains with them, throughout the 

 whole of its life, in the walks which they frequent. In the New Forest 

 there are more than twelve distinct herds of fallow deer, each of which 

 has its own range, and is under the charge of its especial keeper ; and it 

 scarcely ever happens that an individual from any of these herds quits 

 its companions and mingles with those of another walk. Every one of 

 the deer of each particular herd is so well known to its keeper as to be 

 immediately missed by him, if it were to escape; and to be at once recog- 

 nisable in the midst of another herd, had it associated with them. But 

 even a solitary instance of wandering is almost unknown. 



In this case the deer are all of one kind ; for it is of the fallow deer 

 only that I have been here speaking. The red deer now on the New 

 Forest, amounting to about a hundred head, are not recognised as having 

 distinct haunts from the fallow deer: the herds never mix together, it is 



