NOVEMBER. 



ROE SHOOTING. 



By J. Moray Brown. 



The roe {Capreolus capria) is the smallest of the three species 

 of deer indigenous to the British Isles, the male being only- 

 somewhat over two feet in height. The colour of the roe-deer 

 varies considerably with the season of the year, being reddish 

 during the summer, and changing to slaty, bluish grey as winter 

 approaches, while the coat becomes very thick. 



Shall I describe the haunts of roe-deer as amid the wild, 

 romantic glens of the North, where from the tangled brown 

 heather, vivid green birch-trees, with their delicate, silvery barked 

 stems, uprear their heads ; and where rock, mountain, and water 

 combine to render the scenery romantic and vivid ? Hardly ; 

 for though you may, and indeed often will, find roe-deer amid 

 such surroundings, you will more often meet with them in sombre 

 pine-woods, or among plantations of young fir and oak, and 

 on the borderland, between cultivation and the barren forest 

 region. There you may often see them feeding on young clover 

 or oats, and if you be a naturalist as well as a sportsman, you 

 will derive no small pleasure from watching their movements, 

 and noting how the fastidious, graceful little deer wander hither 



