NOVEMBER 247 



XLV 



In the summer of 1913 a remarkable exhibition 

 was organised by Country Life, arranged 

 by Messrs. Rowland Ward, and displayed in 

 the gallery of the Royal Water-Colour Society, Pall 

 Mall, consisting entirely of the heads and antlers of 

 red and fallow deer. It was a chance not to be missed 

 by any one interested in British natural history, for 

 such a representative collection had never before been 

 got together, nor is it likely that so fair an opportunity 

 will recur of comparing the extremes of dimension 

 in the antlers of red deer — the fantastic exuberance 

 developed by sheltered quarters and abundant food, as 

 in the head of the great Warnham stag with its thirty- 

 nine points — the baneful effect of severe exposure, as 

 shown in the horns from Loch Maddy and Corrour 

 Forest — the noble development of antlers in British 

 red stags acclimatised in the rich pasture and genial 

 sunshine of New Zealand. 



To the owners of Scottish deer forests the exhibition 

 was not devoid of melancholy, for it showed how the 

 Highland heads have deteriorated within the last 

 hundred years. Except in rare instances where a tem- 

 porary effect has been produced by the introduction of 

 fresh blood from English parks or continental moun- 

 tains, it would be impossible at the present day to 

 match such heads as the ten-pointer from Kinlochewe, 



