248 DEER AND DEER PARKS. Ch. XI. 



the park; about 5, they resume it, and work up regularly, coming to the 

 front of the house. Before rain, it has been also observed that you fre- 

 quently see the does, followed by their fawns, dancing round the rookery, 

 a group of trees in the centre of the park ; in this sport they are not, 

 however, joined by the bucks.' A remarkable incident, which took place 

 some years ago in Donington Park, Leicestershire, has been recorded 

 in the pages of ' The Reliquary,' ' from whence the following is an 

 extract : — 



' Some timber was being felled in the park, and to one of the trees 

 was attached a cord, by which the woodmen intended to pull it in a certain 

 direction. At night, when the men went from their work, this cord was left 

 dangling down to the ground, when a deer began to amuse himself by 

 rubbing his horns against it. By and by, his horns got entangled, so that 

 he could not loose them, but with the constant friction, through the night, 

 of the rope against the tree, as he tossed his head to and fro, the rope broke, 

 leaving a considerable portion wrapped about his horns. As he was 

 roaming about the park, another deer attacked him, and by butting their 

 heads together, the second deer managed to unwrap several yards of the 

 rope, and also to noose himself; so that the two deer were tied together' 

 by a cord of perhaps three yards in length. Feeling themselves fettered, 

 both animals became furious, and must have attacked each other with 

 tremendous force for a long time, when the strength of one failed him, who 

 sunk down, no more to renew the combat. The live deer- was found 

 tethered to the dead one, being unable either to extricate himself from his 

 dead companion or drag him about.' * 



The doe brings forth her young in the month of June, and occasionally 

 much later,' at which time she seeks a retired spot among fern, or other 



' The Reliquary, vol. i. p. 239. fawn was dropped in the Park of Eatington, in 



' An incident of the same description be- Warwickshire. The period of gestation in the 



tween two bucks in the Home Park at Hamp- doe is eight months ; she brings forth generally 



ton Court' was described by a writer in the one, not unfrequently two; and sometimes three, 



newspapers in October 1865. fawns at a birth. 



' In the year 1861, on November 3, a living 



