THE NEW FOREST DEER 98 



keep, I never could extract a farthing. But this 

 incessant increase in the deer, with the attempt 

 to stem the flood, was a worrying thing and a 

 difficult one to control. I put my hand in my 

 pocket for the hounds we required, and the un- 

 fortunate keepers were mulcted in their pay for 

 the keep of the hounds, without which they could 

 not do their duty. But it was not generous treat- 

 ment. Altogether I got a great deal of sport out 

 of the deer in my own way, and the cry that 

 came to me from the masters of the buckhounds 

 and all interested in the hunting of the deer was 

 always to press me to keep on killing them down, 

 lest all their sport be swamped by the multiplica- 

 tion of their quarry. 



Like other deer, the New Forest bucks fight 

 desperately in the rutting season not unfrequently 

 even to the death. A curious case occurred about 

 1905, when two bucks were found still warm, but 

 both dead, in the bottom of a drain, with their 

 horns so firmly locked together, that it was almost 

 impossible to disengage them. The heads of both 

 had to be cut off and removed together, before the 

 bodies could be got out of the drain. It would 

 appear as if one buck had turned to fly, and his 

 pursuer had locked the horns together by an attack 

 from behind, falling on to the defeated deer into 

 the drain, and turning right over, locked as he was 



