1 8 Deer Breeding for Fine Heads 



On the Continent the greatest care is taken to improve deer, 

 but in Scotland the general rule seems to be to kill every big 

 stag that can be seen, without any reference to the future good of 

 the herd. 



How often one hears a stalker say, " Do not shoot that stag, 

 he has a bad head," or, "We had better go on, there is no head 

 worth shooting in this lot"; whereas he ought to say, " There is 

 a stag with a very bad head, you had better shoot him." 



What would be thought of a breeder of horses or cattle who 

 killed every good animal he bred and only kept the trash ? And 

 yet this is just the way most Scotch forests are managed. 



As already mentioned, there are white red deer in a few parks, 

 and I suppose there must have been a time when stags with a 

 white blaze on the face were not uncommon, as one hears of the 

 " bald-faced " stag as an inn-sign. Personally I have never seen 

 one, but I once saw in a menagerie a female roe with a broad 

 white stripe down her face, labelled " Common " Roe ! 



It is curious how the "White Hart" inn-sign (a hart is old English 

 and Scotch for a warrantable stag) is generally wrongly represented. 

 On the road from Ashford to London, via the Old Kent Road, there 

 are three White Hart Inns, one of w r hich has a white hind instead of 

 a stag on the sign-board, while the other two have white fallow bucks 

 as signs. At Pirbright I came across a White Hart Inn which had. 

 the outline of a conventional " Heart" cut into the wall, as a sign, so 

 I painted a new sign-board with an albino stag with pink eyes like a 

 white rabbit, and a pink nose and yellow hoofs and horns, for the inn. 

 I find, however, that I was wrong with regard to the eyes, white 

 " red deer" having pale hazel eyes. 



