FAWNS IN THE 'FENCE-MONTHS' 125 



is only the older fawns that are seen lying in the 

 open ground or trotting with the herds. When the 

 fawn is born, the mother gently pushes it with her 

 nose until it lies down in the fern, and then goes 

 away and watches from a distance, only returning 

 at intervals to feed it, or, if the wind changes, or rain 

 threatens, to draw it away to more sheltered ground. 

 They are not only most affectionate, but also most 

 courageous mothers. Not long ago, a carriage was 

 being driven along the road which skirts the wooded 

 hill upon which the White Lodge stands. There is 

 a considerable space of flat, open ground between the 

 wood and the road ; but a young red deer hind which 

 was watching her first calf was so excited by the 

 barking of a collie-dog which accompanied the carriage, 

 that she ran down from the hill and attacked and 

 wounded the dog with her fore-feet, until she drove 

 it for refuge under the carriage. As she continued 

 to bar the road, the carriage was turned round and 

 driven back, but was all the way followed by the 

 hind until it left the park by the Robin Hood Gate. 

 Gilbert White mentions a similar attack made on a 

 dog in defence of her fawn by one of the half-wild 

 hinds in Wolmer Forest. " Some fellows," he writes, 

 " suspecting that a calf new-fallen was deposited in 

 a certain spot of thick fern, went with a lurcher to 

 surprise it, when the parent-hind rushed out of the 

 brake, and taking a vast spring, with all her feet 

 close together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and 

 broke it ! " 



