THE ROE DEER 35' 



EOE DEEE (Capreolus caprea) 

 Coloured Plate XXIV. Fig. 3. 



This elegant and active Deer is the smallest of the Euro- 

 pean species, even an adult buck being little more than two 

 feet high at the shoulder, and weighing only about sixty 

 pounds. The Roe Deer is a native of the British Isles, but 

 is also found in many parts of Europe between the Baltic 

 Sea and almost as far South as Spain and Italy ; and 

 from the Caucasus it extends into Persia. In 

 Asia it is of larger size than elsewhere. In 

 Britain the Roe Deer is now found in a wild 

 state only in the Highlands of Scotland, 

 except for a few scattered herds in Blackmoor 

 Vale, Dorset, and Epping Forest. In many 

 English parks are herds of semi-domesticated 

 animals. 



In summer the coarse and stiff hair of the 

 Roe Deer is a dark reddish-brown, with a 

 white haunch patch ; in winter the colour 

 is grey with a tinge of yellow. Normally, 

 the nine-inch-long antler possesses but three 

 points, each taking a year to grow ; but not 

 infrequently there are a number of other ill- 

 formed and irregular tines. While in the stag 

 the antlers are shed early in spring and BOXES OF 

 renewed with the advance of summer, those T ^ROEDEER. 

 of the Roe Deer are shed by the end of 

 December and renewed by the following February. No 

 antler has been found to exceed thirteen inches in length ; 

 but it has been known to prove a sufficient weapon to 

 kill a man. Sometimes there is a third antler in the middle, 

 and at rare intervals a hind is found in possession of 

 antlers. 



Wild, shy, and cautious, the Roe Deer generally frequents 

 woods, where it lives in small companies of a pair and 

 their young, which often number two at a birth, though 

 three is by no means a rarity. The spots on the coat of 

 the fawn fade away towards the end of its first year. In 



