CHASING THE ROE 43 



perhaps a grander object, but, as far as grace of 

 motion is concerned, clumsy in comparison. His 

 dappled cousin the fallow-buck may have come 

 over before the Conqueror, but is undoubtedly 

 a foreign intruder of Asiatic origin, although he 

 has been sufficiently long settled in his adopted 

 home to acquire all the rights and privileges of 

 an English citizen, including the doubtful advan- 

 tage of having paid toll to Robin Hood and his 

 merry men in Sherwood Forest, and tithe to the 

 Church in the person of Friar Tuck. Still these 

 country cousins must be content with a respectful 

 recognition of their charms, quite different from 

 the hearty admiration which any true John Bull 

 or Sandy bestows upon his indigenous kinsman. 

 They shared the society and provided the food 

 and clothing of our palaeolithic ancestors, and 

 their bones and horns are found in cave and 

 tumulus with those of hyaena and bear, along 

 with the flint arrowheads and knives which killed 

 and skinned them. And if the claim of ancient 

 lineage and descent is not acknowledged in this 

 revolutionary age, the roe can appeal to the sym- 

 pathies of the most ardent democrat on the ground 

 of his unquenchable love of liberty. Stag and 

 hind, fallow buck and doe, take kindly enough 

 to a semi-domestic life, and are familiar objects 

 in parks and paddocks all over England ; but the 

 roe does not readily brook confinement within a 

 narrow fence, running round and round, seeking 



