BUCK-HUNTING. 249 



a lut of hungry surveyors, anxious for a job, cutting our last bit 

 of natural scenery up into farms and eligible building-sites ; and I 

 sincerely hope that the gentlemen living round it, who are to a 

 man fond of sport, will have influence enough to preserve also 

 the few deer still left there, or even increase their number that 

 the annual April's sport may not be cut short. It would be a 

 great boon to many, who want of time or money keep from 

 going into Devonshire, if bucks were hunted here in the regular 

 season for the sport, from Midsummer to October. 



As the buck ruts three weeks later than the stag, by so much 

 could the season for hunting him be extended ; and the does, 

 until they were very numerous indeed, would be better left out 

 altogether, as they generally run badly. The great bugbear to 

 many hunting in the Xew Forest is the bogs, and I am fain to 

 admit that several of them are dangerous enough ; but with a 

 moderate share of prudence, and selecting one who knows the 

 ground as your leader (it is impossible for a stranger to ride 

 his own line there), you may escape them well enough. I only 

 know that, with a long experience in the forest, I was never 

 in one, or likely to be in, though I have seen others less 

 fortunate. In the summer and autumn, of course it would ride 

 much firmer and sounder, generally, than in winter or spring. 



No doubt many will be surprised to learn that there still exists, 

 within a very short distance of London, a small herd of really 

 wild fallow deer. These are all that remain in the once-famed 

 Epping Forest, where old Bob Eounding, not very long ago, 

 said to me, ^' I have sat here and seen them feeding within a 

 hundred yards of my door." This was at Woodford Wells. 

 There is very small chance of deer ever feeding there again. 

 However, a few still remain in more inaccessible parts of the 

 forest, and in the autumn of 1877 the keepers killed a very 

 fine buck there ; but it shows how wary they are become when 

 I say that he was only killed after several attempts, and then 

 not by what we should term legitimate hunting, as, although 

 they had hounds, they waited about and shot him as he passed. 



