FEBRUARY 55 



The roe's winter coat is dark, slaty-brown, but this 

 changes in May to bright russet and so continues till 

 after the rutting season, which begins in July or 

 August. Both sexes carry at all seasons, on the rump, 

 a large disk of pure white ' pelage ' (the technical term 

 for the fur or hair of all kinds of deer). This, being 

 very conspicuous, often betrays the presence of a roe 

 which might otherwise easily be overlooked in the 

 twilight of a wood. Naturalists have long been 

 puzzled as to the purpose of this singular feature, which, 

 like the corresponding white scut of hares and rabbits, 

 seems so strangely at variance with any scheme of 

 protective colouring. No satisfactory explanation has 

 been propounded of the anomaly. It can hardly be to 

 the advantage of these animals to wave, as it were, a 

 white handkerchief in the face of man or beast in 

 pursuit of them. 



The Baron of Bradwardine told Captain Waverley 

 that ' the roe may be hunted at all times alike, for, 

 never being in what is termed " pride of grease," he is 

 also never out of season, though it be a truth that his 

 venison is not equal to that of either the red or the 

 fallow deer.' Personally, I have always endeavoured to 

 have our immigrant roe killed between October and the 

 end of April, when their coats are dark, and the doe 

 should never be used for food except between August 

 and the end of February. 



In primitive times, before the forest was cleared 

 away, roe-deer no doubt existed all over Great Britain, 

 north and south ; but there is no geological evidence of 

 their former presence in Ireland. They have never 



