BRITISH DEER 209 



shire in 1800, and from its original home at Milton Abbas 

 has extended far and wide. Though the roes are nowhere 

 very numerous, owing to their solitary habits, and the lack 

 of protection in many places, they are becoming a familiar 

 species over a considerable part of Hampshire and Somerset- 

 shire, as well as Dorsetshire. They have reappeared in the 

 New Forest, where they were long extinct. Their spread 

 has been greatly helped on the Dorset and Hampshire 

 border by the increase of plantations and self-sown thickets 

 of the Scotch fir. The two Scotch species thrive and spread 

 together. Probably the roe will gradually extend its range 

 through a large part of the fir-clad region in the southern 

 counties ; but it loves sylvan quiet, and is never likely to 

 settle in the more populous districts. Its dislike of disturb- 

 ance is so marked that in spite of its comparatively small 

 size it tends to wander away from Epping Forest, where 

 it has been reintroduced, though the fallow deer are well 

 content to stay. Its habits are wary and partly nocturnal, like 

 those of the red deer. If the forest has quiet open glades 

 in which it can browse the mixed herbage, it will feed by 

 day ; but if it inhabits a thick wood bordering open land, 

 it will wait till night to come outside the wood to feed. 

 Besides grass, it eats the leaves of holly and deciduous 

 trees, shoots of heather and other various shrubs, and also 

 raids growing corn, clover, and turnips. Its spread is there- 

 fore a good deal checked by the hostility of farmers, except 

 on estates where it is carefully protected. 



The roe differs considerably from both the red and 

 fallow deer in the chief dates of its calendar. Early autumn 

 for this species is the quiet time after the rutting season, 

 when the reddish summer coat is changed for the thicker 

 pelt of grey ; and in November the bucks begin to shed 

 their horns. The last horns are dropped by about the end 



