ENGLISH DEER PARKS. 155 



(1790), the deer were very numerous. I recollect my father taking 

 me up to the Buckholt in an evening for the purpose of shewing 

 them to me, and we never failed of seeing several. From that 

 time for twenty years, in consequence of the decrease of the 

 covert, and the increase of poachers, they rapidly diminished, 

 until in 1810, when I do not believe there were ten in the whole 

 forest. At this period the enclosures were made for the preserva- 

 tion of timber, and woodmen appointed to the care of them ; the 

 few deer that were left were protected, and as the young trees grew 

 up so as to afford them shelter, they rapidly increased, and in 

 thirty years, viz. in 1840, I should think there were not less than 

 800 or 1000 deer in this forest." 



These, however, were wild Fallow-deer. The Red-deer were 

 introduced in 1842 by Mr. Herring, who brought down on Feb. 

 24th, from Woburn, two stags and four hinds. They were in fine 

 condition, and were turned loose in Russell's Enclosure, one mile 

 from the Speech-house. Here they roamed for some years, and 

 increased in number until 1848. In that year, according to 

 Machen, " on October 6th, the last stag returned to the forest, 

 after having been in the woods near Chepstow almost a year. 

 He was found in Oaken Hill, and killed, after a run of three 

 hours, in Sallow Vallets. His haunches weighed 51 tfes., and the 

 whole weight 307 lbs. The Fallow-deer of the forest were reduced 

 in number after the year 1850 by killing a large number of does. 

 They were all fine animals, and when the enclosures protected 

 them they got very fat and the venison of fine flavour. They 

 were generally hunted." 



At the time of Lord Duncan's Committee, in 1849, continues 

 Nicholls (p. 203), a general feeling prevailed against the deer, on 

 the ground of their demoralizing influence as an inducement to 

 poaching, and all were ordered to be destroyed, there being at 



that time perhaps 150 bucks and 300 does Ornamental 



to a forest as deer undoubtedly are, and disappointing as it may 

 be to the stranger to find none in the Forest of Dean, we cannot 

 but regret that in 1855, according to Machen, there was not a 

 deer left in the forest, and only a few stragglers in the High 

 Meadow Woods. 



A hundred years ago there were Red-deer in Cornwall. When 

 Borlase published his Natural History of that county, he wrote : — 

 "Red-deer are seldom seen in this county; some, however, make 



N 2" 



