i 1 4 DEER-S TALKING 



occasionally, but there are strong reasons for believing 

 that deer who frequent sheep-ground are not greatly 

 scared by the intermittent appearance of the shepherd 

 and his dog. Indeed, I have been told that they 

 actually recognise the man, and when the latter comes 

 in sight, a stag will only move off to the next corrie 

 in a slow majestic manner and be back again next 

 day. Be that as it may, there is no doubt whatever 

 that when deer see their danger they are less alarmed 

 than when they suspect it, or when it comes upon 

 them suddenly. I have myself shot grouse over dogs 

 for half an hour with deer looking on and apparently 

 enjoying the sport within half a mile. Of course they 

 move off eventually, but they do so in a very different 

 way, and go a very much shorter distance, than they 

 would if the cause of disturbance had been the head 

 of a man appearing on a knoll a hundred yards off 

 followed by the crack of his rifle. 



It seems therefore a fair conclusion to arrive 

 at, that many of these sheep-walks were a kind of 

 sanctuary for deer ; that they were only used as such 

 by a few stags, as there would not be enough grass for 

 many ; that certain of these stags, for reasons which 

 we cannot fathom, preferred solitude to the com- 

 panionship of the herd ; that they were not much dis- 

 turbed by shepherds until the time when they naturally 



