DEER STALKING. 31 7 



never been satisfactorily proved. This is not our 

 opinion alone, but that of those long conversant 

 with the habits of deer. 



Mr. John Crerar, who was head forest-keeper at 

 Blair -Atholl nearly sixty years, and whose father 

 had likewise the charge of Atholl Forest for a long- 

 time before him, remembered that in the third 

 Duke of AtholFs time, a number of red-deer being 

 in a park at one of his Grace's seats, (Atholl 

 House,) his father, being then keeper, was ordered 

 by the Duke to shoot the whole of those deer, ex- 

 cept three of the oldest harts and three hinds, 

 which were to be kept. When the late Duke came 

 into possession of the estate on his father's death, 

 one of those harts was fifteen years old, and was 

 alive, to Mr. John Crerar's knowledge, fourteen 

 years after, at which time a deer-hound unluckily 

 got into the park, and chased this hart to a pond 

 frozen over, when the ice broke, and the hart was 

 drowned. This hart's age, then, must have been 

 nearly thirty years, and it might perhaps have 

 lived many years longer had it not met with the 

 accident. Deer, like hares, in extreme old age be- 

 come grey, if not white ; but it remains to be 

 proved at what age that change takes place in deer, 

 and how long they live after it has taken place. 

 We have reason to believe that the hart in question 

 had not assumed that appearance ; but the death 

 of Mr. Crerar, which occurred while these sheets 

 were going through the press, has perhaps pre- 

 cluded its ever being known. Nor is it known 

 what became of the other five deer. Had the 

 2 D 



