44 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



Hitter en stalking, as has doubtless been gathered 

 by my readers from the incidents already described, 

 is a somewhat different art from that of Scotland. 

 In the first place it is woodland stalking, though 

 occasionally I have enjoyed a stalk, after a spy a 

 mile or so away, equal in duration, exercise, and 

 excitement to anything that can be obtained in Grlen 

 AfFaric, Athol, or Reay. Is it presumptuous here to 

 remind the modern Scotch stalker that the red-deer 

 is, the world over, by nature a woodland deer ? The 

 open deer-forest of Scotland, supplying though it 

 does a manly, exhilarating and often arduous form 

 of sport, is, strictly speaking, an artificial creation. 

 The Scotch deer do not, as a rule, frequent woods, 

 because the old pine-forests of Scotland have been 

 mostly destroyed, and there are, generally speaking, 

 no woods for them to frequent. Where woods of 

 birch and pine still exist, in or near Scotch forests, 

 in those woods will always be found for a good part 

 of the year the largest, the heaviest, and the best- 

 conditioned stags. 



Some correspondence at one time appeared in the 

 Field on the subject of the decadence of Scotch 

 heads. Whilst many causes may have combined to 

 bring about this degeneracy of the modern Scotch 

 red- deer head, as compared with the noble antlers of 

 a century or so ago, on all or any of which causes I 

 should be sorry to dogmatize, yet I may in this 

 connection venture to assert that in the change from 

 woodland to open forest is to be found one great 

 reason for the degeneracy of the modern wire-fenced, 

 hay-in-winter-fed animal. Increase of numbers under 

 artificial conditions, combined with restricted range, 

 have no doubt told their tale ; but deprive an animal, 



