THE RED DEER'S HOME 21 



out to the red deer of the Wordsworth country. It 

 was from Martindale, too, that Gowbarrow Park was 

 supplied with the ancestors of the existing herd. 

 The Gowbarrow deer, like those of Muncaster, roam 

 at will over a wild moorland, but their range is 

 limited by fencing. Yet they are as truly wild 

 animals as the deer in any Scottish forest which 

 happens to be enclosed. They are not, I think, as 

 free from the taint of tame blood as the deer on the 

 other side of the lake ; because tame stags have been 

 introduced to Gowbarrow on several occasions. The 

 Martindale deer have never received any infusion 

 of any foreign strain. This is remarkable, because 

 most of the English forests which existed in the last 

 two centuries did from time to time supply a home 

 to strange deer. Even in our own time, tame park- 

 fed stags were carried to the remote island forest 

 of Rum, with a view of improving the heads of the 

 Hebridean stags. In the same way draughts of 

 continental deer found their way occasionally into 

 the royal forests south of the Tweed. The Duke of 

 Buckingham was invited to furnish a draught of the 

 Whaddon deer for Windsor Forest this was in 1685. 

 He replied to the agent who approached him in the 

 following words : c I cannot bring my mind down low 

 enough to think of selling red deer, but if you believe 



