6 DEER AND DEER PARKS. Ch. I. 



•he has received a specimen of a wild fallow-buck, killed in forestland to 

 the south of Tunis.' Professor Owen, in a communication with which I 

 have been favoured on this subject, remarks, ' that while he has derived 

 abundant evidence of red-deer, roe-deer, and sundry extinct kinds, 

 indigenous in Britain, he has never met with a fossil specimen, or one from 

 marl or turbary, or cavern, of the fallow-deer, and considers this negative 

 evidence as supporting the conclusion of the exotic origin of Cervus dama.'^ 

 ' Its enjoyment of summer,' adds Professor Owen, ' and sufferings in hard 

 winters, show the fallow-deer not yet to have become thoroughly acclima- 

 tised; a rough shed, or some such shelter, and heat-engendering food (beans, 

 maize, &c.) help to keep the herds in good condition, in our most favoured 

 counties as to climate.' 



But if not indigenous to Great Britain, there can be no doubt but that 

 fallow-deer were introduced into England at a very early period, .^thel- 

 stin ^therling, son of ^thelred II., mentions in his will his ' heahdeor,' or 

 tall deer [Red Deer.?], which seems to imply that he had also lesser, or 

 fallow-deer, though roe-deer may be intended, and 'tall deer hounds' occur 

 in the joint will of Byrhtric and .(Elfswyth in the year 1045.^ 



If indeed we may regard that remarkable rhyming grant purported to 

 be made by Edward the Confessor to Randolph Peperking for a genuine 

 document of that age — and we appear to have the authority of Camden'' 

 for so regarding it — we have distinct evidence of the introduction of the 

 fallow-deer into England before the Norman Conquest, if we may not 

 conclude that the darker and hardier variety of the species is of native 

 origin. The grant is as follows : — 



' Ich Edward koning 

 Have geven of my forest the keeping 



' Rdgne Animal, i. (1829), p. 262. * Camden's Britannia, under Essex. Cough's 



2 Hist, of British Fossa Mammals, 8vo. 1846, ed. vol. ii. p. '121. It is also admitted into 



^' f^i , T.- , . • , V ^''- ^^"J^™'"i Thorpe's English Charters, 8vo.' 



' Thorpe s Diplomatanum Anglicum, pp. 501 1865, p. 420. 



and 561. 



