HABITS OF FALLOW DEER 
ure twenty-five or more inches along the curve, and are not 
completed until the buck is six years old. In color this deer 
is yellowish dun or “fallow,” with whitish spots on the sides 
and white under parts; the buttocks and under side of the 
rather long tail are white, and the latter is hoisted in moments 
of alarm after the manner of our whitetail. The coat becomes 
grayish in winter, and a variety of great antiquity in Epping 
Forest, England, is dark brown, only faintly spotted. 
The fallow deer is a native of both shores of the Mediterranean, and is 
still found wild in Sardinia and the Grecian islands. Thence it was long 
ago half domesticated throughout Europe, and was taken to the British 
Isles probably by the Roman colonists. ‘Fallow deer are gregarious to 
a great extent,’ we are told by Bell, ‘‘associating in large herds, the bucks 
apart from the does, except in the pairing season and early winter, when 
the sexes consort in company. Most persons must be familiar with their 
boldness and the confident manner in which they will approach mankind 
where they are well accustomed to his presence; importuning the stranger 
who picnics in Greenwich Park for a biscuit or an apple, which is seldom 
refused.. . The fallow deer feeds on herbage; it has been noted that it 
is especially fond of horse-chestnuts, which the bucks knock down from 
the branches with their antlers, and the tree is consequently frequently 
planted in deer parks. Fallow deer venison is usually considered much 
superior to that of the red deer, being generally much fatter, but the latter 
is considered by some to have the finest flavor. The skin of both the buck 
and doe is well known as affording a soft and durable leather. The antlers, 
like those of other species, are manufactured into the handles of knives and 
other cutlers’ instruments, and the shavings and refuse have always been 
employed in the manufacture of ammonia, whence the name ‘hartshorn.’’’ 
This brings us to the foremost exemplars of all this noble 
and graceful family, — the red deer of the Old World and the 
wapiti of the New. 
The red deer, hart or stag, has been renowned for centuries 
as the noblest object of the chase in Europe, where it once 
ranged throughout the continent and far into Asia, 
and although long ago exterminated as a wild crea- 
ture in thickly settled regions, it is preserved in all parts of 
399 
Red Deer. 
