242 DEER AND DEER PARKS. Ch. XI. 



health by constantly breeding in and in, and this appears to be the more 

 general opinion. In support of the former practice, it is alleged that in 

 very many parks no change has ever been made for very many years, and 

 yet the deer remain perfectly healthy and free from disease ; this has been 

 accounted for by the fact that with deer those bucks only whose soundness 

 in every respect has been most severely tried by a series of terrific duels, 

 proving themselves the strongest, and masters of the whole herd, become 

 the sires of the rising stock, and consequently a buck with the slightest 

 constitutional defect is debarred from propagating a weak point among the 

 species.' To this it may be answered that in the end nevertheless the con- 

 stant breeding in and in, is sure to tell to the disadvantage of the whole 

 herd, though it may take a very long time to prove it ; and, moreover, when 

 we find, as is very constantly the case, that the introduction of fresh blood 

 has been of the very greatest use to deer, both by improving their size 

 and appearance, and particularly by being of service in removing the taint 

 of '.rickback, ' if not of other diseases to which deer are sometimes subject 

 when the blood has not been changed, there can, I think, be no doubt but 

 that a judicious cross with a good stock is of the greatest consequence, and 

 is indeed essential, sooner or later, to the prosperity of every well-ordered 

 park. 



Among the several varieties of fallow-deer, the black and very dark, 

 (supposed by some to be indigenous, by others to have come from Den^ 

 mark)^ are generally considered the hardiest and least subject to disease ; 

 they are, however, less in size than the lighter-coloured deer, which may be 

 divided into the spotted, otherwise called menil or Manilla, deer,' the 

 white and cream-coloured, the yellow or fallow, the skew or blue deer, and 



> I am obliged to Viscount Falmouth for this ley, in Nottinghamshire, tailed the forest breed, 



argument. It shows also that a good keeper ' From Manilla, the capital of the Philippine 



should be careful to preserve one of the best Islands, in the East Indies, from whence these 



framed and most healthy of his bucks for stock, deer are by some supposed to have been brought 



and not kill all the best for venison. about the year 1730. See Anderson's Recrea- 



" Seep. 9. They are sometimes, as at Annes- tions, vol. ii. p. 370. 



