2o8 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



on grass, but have an appetite for the leaves of many de- 

 ciduous trees. They are also fond of gnawing the bark of 

 thorn-trees. They are a more purely woodland species than 

 the red deer, though less so than the roe. From the com- 

 paratively small size, the tameness, and the great beauty of 

 the true * fallow ' or dappled breed in summer, they are far 

 the most suitable of the British group of deer for keeping in 

 most parks. The red deer is almost too large and wild an 

 animal to fit in with the gentle sylvan aspect of typical Eng- 

 lish park land. It needs a grey day when the distances are 

 blinded with drizzling rain, and the feeding stags shake them- 

 selves free of the moisture from time to time with a strong 

 spasmodic motion that surrounds them with a thick cloud of 

 spray. On fine days they look too big for their surroundings, 

 which the dainty fallow deer suit perfectly. 



The roe deer is rather remarkable among our larger 

 English animals for the recent extension of its range. This 

 is due to the great increase of plantations in Scotland, which 

 supply this typically woodland species with a congenial 

 home. They also tend to wander further afield into new 

 plantations when their old woods grow dark and over- 

 shadowed, and the feeding consequently poor. Roe are 

 thus growing noticeably commoner in many districts where 

 planting has been general during the last half century, and 

 are making their appearance in places where they have 

 been unknown in living memory. Their increase as they 

 populate fresh districts is only partly counterbalanced by their 

 diminution in some of their old haunts. Their increase as 

 the result of the extension of planting is comparable to that 

 of the capercailzie in the same districts. In England the 

 roe became almost extinct in the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries ; it seems only to have kept a footing at Naworth 

 Castle in Cumberland. But it was reintroduced into Dorset- 



