MAMMALS 



be contented to give, I doe as in all cases of pur- 

 chase, ground myselfe uppon the markett, which 

 is twentie shillings for every Deere above a Fawne 

 ... the purchaser being att all the charges of 

 taking and bringing away, & thirtie shillings a 

 piece to have them delivered to me att Quainton. 

 I shall expect the full indevor of the Keepers to 

 holpe me in the taking of them, and to paie my 

 money when I receave them. 



Further on we read of two of the deer at 

 Claydon getting drowned and of others sick- 

 ening in the winter, and of the steward's dis- 

 tress thereat. In the spring of 1660 ' Cousin 

 Winwood ' was negotiating for Sir Ralph 

 Verney the purchase of the deer from Fawley 

 Court as above mentioned. The deer are 

 again referred to in 1665 and 1681. 



Ditton Park. Ditton Park is about three 

 miles from Stoke Park ; and in a description 

 of Windsor Forest and its Liberties, by Nor- 

 den, 1 Surveyor of Woods to James I., it is 

 stated that 'Ditton Parke hath about 220 

 deere, about 50 of antler, and 2O buckes,' 

 and contained 'about 195 akers good ground.' 

 Deer ' of antler ' would mean the young males, 

 the ' buckes ' being those of four years and 

 upwards. 



Doddershall House, in Quainton parish. 

 The deer park here was converted into arable 

 and meadow on the death of the Dowager 

 Countess Say and Sele, whose second husband 

 (of three) was John Pigott, Esq., in 1789. 



Hart-well House. A print in my collection 

 is labelled 'Hartwell House Buckinghamshire,' 

 engraved by S. Middiman from an original 

 drawing by Metz, published 1793. Five 

 deer are shown close to the front of the house ; 

 black spots on some seem to indicate fallow 

 deer, but the horns are too small and conven- 

 tionally drawn to afford any indication of 

 species. 



Ghiainton Park. Has been mentioned under 

 the heading of Claydon Park. The Win- 

 woods' house was partly demolished, and the 

 remainder converted into a farm, at the be- 

 ginning of the eighteenth century. 



Safety Forest. Chiefly in Northampton- 

 shire, but as a small portion is in Hanslope 

 parish it must be mentioned as a former 

 habitat of deer in Bucks. It has been dis- 

 forested within living memory, and I have 

 seen small fallow deer horns from animals 

 formerly inhabiting it. 



Thornton Hall. In Memoirs of the Verney 

 Family, ii. 160, Lady Sussex, writing in July 

 1643, says : 



Sr edwarde terell was a little fearfull ; prince 



robort [ = Rupert] hade bene hontinge att his parke 

 [i.e. Thornton], . . . ; he kailde fife buckes, 

 shote them and his doge boy poullede them down, 

 he dide not ride att all. 



Turville Park. Fallow deer were per- 

 haps introduced when the present house was 

 built by William Perry, shortly after 1735. 

 They were got rid of probably between 1858 

 and 1863, during which period there were 

 several changes in the ownership of the pro- 

 perty. Mrs. Stafford O'Brien Hoare informs 

 me that an old farmer named Pitcher, of 

 Ibstone, who died two or three years ago, 

 told her that he had helped to drive the deer 

 from here to Stonor Park in Oxon, only about 

 three-quarters of a mile distant. A track from 

 one park to the other was temporarily prepared 

 and fenced. Langley mentions this as a deer 

 park. 



West Wycombe Part. Sir Robert J. Dash- 

 wood, Bart., the owner, kindly showed me a 

 'Survey made by John Richardson, 1767, of 

 the Manor of West Wycombe, then belong- 

 ing to Sir Francis Dashwood, afterwards 

 Baron Le Despencer,' in which several deer 

 are figured in the park, and a man out of all 

 proportion in size, is shooting at one at ex- 

 tremely short range. An oil painting of a 

 view of the house now in one of the bed- 

 rooms, shows deer in the park. The dress 

 of a lady in the picture seems to mark the 

 date at about 1790. Without much doubt 

 the deer were fallow, but Sir Robert knows 

 nothing as to the date of their introduction 

 or removal. Langley observes that ' though 

 the wood has not yet acquired the venerable 

 appearance of a more ancient deer-park, yet 

 it is making considerable advances,' etc. 

 Langley's work was published in 1797, and 

 it would seem therefore that deer were only 

 here for a comparatively short time. 



[The Roe Deer. Capreolus capreolus. 

 Bell Capreolus caprea. 



The roe has long been exterminated from 

 this county, and its remains are scarce. We 

 obtained several bones in the pile village at 

 Hedsor of Romano-British date, and there 

 are two or three unlabelled horns in the 

 Museum at Aylesbury, probably from the latter 

 neighbourhood, and of uncertain date, but ap- 

 parently ancient.] 



[Wild Cattle. 



Wild Cattle or some kind inhabited the 

 Chiltern forests in late Saxon and early 

 Norman times, 2 but there is no record of a 



1 MS. in Brit. Mus. quoted by Lipscomb, iv. " Storer, The White Wild Cattle of Great Britain, 

 57. p. 74- 



175 



