MAMMALS 



the businesse bee doun the better." ' The 

 portion of the park between the Court and the 

 Marlow Road (formerly called Fawley Lane) 

 is still called ' The Lawn,' as Mr. Mackenzie 

 informs me, a term used of parts of deer parks. 

 Langley Park. Red deer were introduced 

 into the old-established deer park about the 

 sixties or early seventies by the late Sir 

 Robert Bateson Harvey, bart., father of Sir 

 Robert G. Harvey the present owner, whom 

 I have to thank for information. They 

 were purchased by him at Whittlebury 

 (just over the borders of the county in 

 Northamptonshire, adjoining Lillingstone 

 Lovell), when that property was sold at the 

 death of Lord Southampton. Twenty-five 

 animals were brought here, and another 

 twenty-five were purchased by the late Mr. 

 Coleman, then owner of Stoke Park, and 

 introduced there. The late Sir Robert Harvey 

 also bought (elsewhere) some white red deer, 

 of the same strain as those at Windsor and 

 Welbeck, which are believed to have origin- 

 ally come to England from a royal park in 

 Denmark. In 1887 the present Sir Robert 

 Harvey killed off all the normally-coloured red 

 deer, leaving only the white specimens. Hinds 

 still occasionally throw red calves, but they 

 never now throw one of intermediate colour. 

 At the present time they number about seventy, 

 and all are white. The best white stag once 

 had twenty-three points. Sir Robert Harvey 

 has recently considerably reduced the herds in 

 the park. There are also fallow deer, about 

 forty Japanese deer, which came from Sir 

 Victor Brooke's park, Colebrook (where they 

 were introduced by him and Lord Powers- 

 court from Japan) ; and a flock of (so-called) 

 St. Kilda four-horned black sheep. The ground 

 accessible to the deer comprises 383 acres. 



Stoke Park, Stoke Pages. Mr. W. Bryant, 

 the owner, kindly informs me that the park 

 contains about 100 red deer and comprises 

 500 acres. Sir Robert Harvey has kindly 

 informed me that though this has been a deer 

 park from time immemorial, red deer were 

 added only some forty years ago by Mr. Cole- 

 man, the then owner, being obtained from 

 Whittlebury in Northants. Shirley 1 states 

 that Sir John de Molins obtained licence from 

 Edward III. to empark his woods here 2 in 

 1337, having in 1331 obtained permission to 

 embattle his houses here and at Ditton. 



Stowe Park. The manor belonged to Ose- 

 ney Abbey until the dissolution of monasteries, 



1 Account of English Deer-Parks (1867). 



2 Lipscomb however (iv. 545 and i. 288) states 

 that it was his woods in Ilmer that Sir John then 

 obtained licence to empark, with 100 acres in 

 Beaconsfield, Burnham and Cippenham. 



and no deer seem to have been kept here until 

 about 1651, when, according to Browne 

 Willis, 3 Sir Peter Temple ' enclosed a Park 

 on the disparking of Wicken Park, Co. 

 Northampton, by the Lord Spencer, the Deer 

 of which he bought.' Whitaker gives the 

 number of red deer as twenty. 



32. Fallow Deer. Cervus dama, Linn. 



Probably not indigenous to Great Britain ; 

 and only occurring in Bucks in seven parks. 



Ashridge. In addition to red deer, Mr. 

 Whitaker stated the number of fallow deer 

 (1892) as 300. 



Biddlesden Park. The fallow deer, accord- 

 ing to Whitaker (1892) numbered 160. He 

 states that this is the ancient deer park of the 

 Cistercian Abbey which existed here, dating 

 from ii2O. 4 Extent about 150 acres. 



Fawley Court Park. In addition to red 

 deer, forty to fifty Japanese deer and three 

 Axis deer, contains about sixty to eighty fal- 

 low deer. The species was introduced by 

 Mr. Mackenzie about 1881. The fallow 

 deer here include both the brown and the 

 spotted varieties. 



Langley Park. In addition to red deer, 

 about forty Japanese deer, 6 and a flock of so- 

 called S. Kilda four-horned black sheep, con- 

 tains at the present time about forty fallow 

 deer, the number having been recently re- 

 duced. Whitaker (in 1892) gives the num- 

 ber of fallow deer as about eighty. On visiting 

 this park, by kind permission of Sir Robert 

 Harvey, in April 1 903, 1 saw five of this species 

 quite white, and three or four others very light 

 coloured. This was a royal park until sold 

 by Charles I. to Sir John Kederminster in 

 1626. This park is mentioned in a deed 

 quoted by Lipscomb dated 1523; and ' the 

 bucks and does therein,' i.e. fallow deer, are 

 mentioned in 1551, when Edward VI. gave 

 this manor and park to his sister the princess 

 Elizabeth. In an MS. in the British Museum 

 written by J. Norden, Surveyor of the Woods 

 to James I., 6 this park is alluded to as ' Lang- 

 ley Parke, . . . whereof M. Edmond Keder- 

 minster is keper, hath about 1 40 fallow deere, 

 about 35 of antler, about 14 buckes.' ' Deer 

 of antler ' would mean the young males, the 

 ' buckes ' being only those of four years and 

 upwards. 



3 Hist. and 4 nil j. of the Town, Hundred and Deanery 

 of Buckingham, p. 276. 



4 1 147 is the date of the foundation according 

 to Lysons's and Lipscomb's County Histories. 



5 The Japanese deer came from Sir Victor 

 Brooke's park, Colebrook, where they were intro- 

 duced by him and Lord Powerscourt from Japan. 



8 Lipscomb, iv. 533 (footnote). 



173 



