268 STAG-HUNTING 



CHAPTER VI 



DEER 



REFERENCE has been made to the number of deer 

 generally killed in the season, and in this connection 

 it is often asked how many deer there are in the 

 country hunted by the Devon and Somerset. It is a 

 question difficult to answer, and there is not much 

 encouragement to be found in a letter now before me, 

 written to the then Master in February 1883 by a 

 gentleman who is reckoned an authority, in which he 

 begged that hunting might forthwith be discontinued, 

 on the ground that the herd in the home country, 

 which by elaborate estimates he calculated at 197 and 

 no more, would not stand any further diminution. 

 Hunting, however, went on, and in three years from 

 the date of the letter hounds had killed 188 deer in 

 the districts in which, on paper, only 197 existed : so 

 if the estimate had been correct the deer would have 

 been well nigh exterminated. Yet the average number 

 killed for the last ten seasons is 60 ! 



