THE PRESERVATION OF GAME. 307 



lighter colour. Heaviers, of course, are hornless ; but, being 

 the exact shade of tidy hinds, ear-cropping is necessary to 

 point them out. 



The rutting-time for roe is early in summer, when "the 

 bell " of the roebuck may be heard in all the woods they 

 frequent. Naturalists have written that roes pair and keep in 

 families father, mother, and young ones all winter. For 

 the time the female is in season, no doubt these little deer 

 pair ; but directly after, the buck most likely seeks another 

 mate. At all events, I can answer for it that bucks do not 

 stick to their female and family after the rutting-time ; for in 

 all my shooting-quarters where roe abounded, I invariably saw 

 the doe and her brace or single fawn without any buck, when- 

 ever the pairing-time ended. I think the idea of roes living 

 in families originated in detecting the buck consorting with 

 the doe, followed by her well-grown young, when she was in 

 season ; for in autumn old bucks are generally met with soli- 

 tary, and remain so until early winter, when they become more 

 sociable. 



It is a singular fact that the gestation of roe lasts for nine 

 months, while the far larger red or fallow deer only go seven 

 months with young. Anatomists have found out that in the 

 case of the roe, the embryo lies dormant for several months 

 viz., from the rutting till January. I have shot roes all my 

 life in winter, and never saw signs of young in the does 

 when cut up, till the middle of January or beginning of 

 February, when the young roes always begin to form. About 

 this time, too, the new horns of the bucks grow, the old 

 ones having been shed about Christmas ; and by the end of 

 February they are finely shaped in the velvet, and beginning 

 to harden. 



The very reverse of fallow and red deer, roes are never in 

 good order for the table until they have quite donned the 

 mouse-brown winter coat in November. They assume the 

 summer red, and clean the moss from their horns, long before 



