/*.!>. 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



THIRD SERIES. 



Vol. VIII.] MARCH, 1884. [No. 87. 



THE RED-DEER OF EXMOOR. 



Those who have ever given the subject a thought must some- 

 times have wondered what there is pecuhar about that corner of 

 the West of England which continues to harbour the wild Red- 

 deer when no other part of England affords it shelter. The fact 

 is that the country around Exmoor has not changed with the 

 times, but has remained what it is for ages, a vast uncultivated 

 hilly moorland, a land of mist and heather, resembling nothing so 

 much as a Scotch deer-forest moved south, and therefore as 

 attractive to deer now as it must have been centuries ago when 

 King John hunted in Somersetshire, and flew his jerfalcons at 

 the cranes on its wild wastes. 



The moors of the Exe river are not flat stretches of marsh- 

 land, but hills of great height, covered with heather. The term 

 mountains may almost be applied to them ; numbers of the 

 ridges are twice the height of Beachy Head, or the Dyke at 

 Brighton ; Dunkery Beacon is three times as high. But the 

 conformation of the country is such that on entering it the 

 elevations do not seem very unusual, for as it is all high and 

 raised, the eye has nothing with which to contrast it. When on 

 the moor it appears an immense table -land, intersected by deep 

 narrow valleys, called coombes, at the bottom of which a stream 

 always flows. At some distance apart are ranges of hills rising 

 gradually, and with gentle slopes above the general level of the 

 moor. The curves appear so moderate and the ascent so easy, 



ZOOLOGIST. — MARCH, 1884. H 



