WILD DEER. 435 



down a young Fawn. The animals exactly agree 

 with Humboldt's description of the Cervus Mexicanus 

 brownish-red spotted with white, and were no doubt 

 imported at the same time with a cargo of mules, 

 sheep, and oxen from Cumana. Mr. Townshend says 

 that the herds now in the forest are an importation 

 of Sir Charles Price's eighty years ago ; — Sir Charles 

 at that time being the proprietor of the Farm pen 

 close by. Mr. Townshend's father used to relate the 

 occurrence of their getting from the Farm and taking 

 to the Forest, as an incident that happened when he 

 was a young man. He was familiarly acquainted 

 with Sir Charles, who was a great lover of Natural 

 History, and possessed many curious Mammalia and 

 birds. An account of his pen in St. Mary's, called 

 the Decoy, will be found in Long's History of 

 Jamaica. It was there he kept his curious Ducks. 

 Colonel Harrison, mentioned by me in one of my 

 preceding letters as agent for the Farm, was an uncle 

 of Mr. Townshend's, — the name of one of his 

 brothers, the Father of the House of Assembly, an 

 octogenarian, being George Harrison Townshend. 



" The places in which our negro woodmen occa- 

 sionally meet these Forest- deer is in some ravine 

 track, or wooded pathway by which the herds descend 

 to the springs to drink. They feed at night, resting 

 still within the woodlands in the day-light hours. 

 They have sometimes been surprised in moonlight 

 nights crossing the highway to the Rio Cobre, by an 

 offshoot of their mountain-hold ; — a line of broken 

 hills which gradually lower towards the stream, called 

 the White Marl. It is only by accident that a herd 



