316 CR OSS- BRED ST A GS 



tops showing the well-known blunt points of the park- 

 deer. The difficulty of circumventing such deer is 

 considerable, inasmuch as their natural cunning partakes 

 more of wood-hiding, unless they are out on the rut, 

 when they take to the hills with the hinds. Unless 

 they are shot soon after they leave the woods, they 

 lose their condition very rapidly. I fancy that this is 

 because they do not, like the true-bred deer, travel 

 enough over the hills, and their more sedentary life 

 tells upon them in no time when they run after the 

 hinds. 



I have known instances where wood-deer in the 

 Highlands are quite content to remain in the same 

 place if they can secure one good hind — indeed, I 

 know some such places at the present time. They are 

 so lazy, and their hoofs grow so long from want of 

 sufficient hill work as to resemble the feet of a cow 

 rather than those of a deer, proving that they never 

 travel far away from the woods over the rocks and 

 rough ground, as do their wilder cousins of the hills. 



The genuine Highland head is very easily recog- 

 nised, with its wild-looking, noble branches ; the 

 points, too, are all sharper and more gracefully tapered 

 than those of stags crossed with park-deer. Owing 

 to this truly regrettable custom of crossing with such 

 deer, the true, wild Highland heads are in many fine 

 forests becoming more and more scarce. 



Royals and imperials are shot down every season, 

 and their heads may be seen being ' set up ' at 

 McLeay's, Snowie's, or Henderson's, in Inverness ; 

 but very few of them show the genuine wild beauty 

 of the true Highland stag, so frequently to be observed 

 in the best heads some twenty or thirty years ago. 



