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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



A Descriptive List of the Deer Parks and Paddocks of England. 

 By Joseph Whitaker. 8vo, pp. 204, with Illustrations. 

 London : Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 1892. 



Many people, doubtless, will regret that Mr. Whitaker has 

 not attempted to bring out a new edition of Shirley's * English 

 Deer Parks,' which has long been out of print, and which, dealing 

 with the history of the parks as well as with their contents, has 

 a much wider scope than his own recent publication. To have 

 corrected Shirley's mistakes (some of them important) and to 

 have supplied additions, would have been an excellent under- 

 taking, although it would have necessarily entailed a considerable 

 expenditure of time and research. If, on comparison of the two 

 books, that of Mr. Whitaker appears somewhat meagre in regard 

 to the information given about each park, it has this merit, from 

 the statistical point of view, that the list of English parks is more 

 complete, and the acreage more exact. 



Occasionally Mr. Whitaker is to be caught tripping, as on 

 page 3 of his " Introduction," where a list of fifty parks is 

 given, prefaced by the remark that " the under-mentioned parks 

 described in Shirley's * English Deer Parks, 1867,' no longer 

 contain deer." But of these at least a dozen are not included by 

 Shirley as existing parks, and seven others, though noticed 

 by him as existing, had no deer in them at the date of his 

 publication. 



Again, while deducting these on the one hand, we might on 

 the other hand add eight or nine names to the list of parks 

 which no longer contain deer. This page of the book therefore 

 requires considerable revision, but it is almost the only one on 

 which any corrections of importance are needed. 



On page 6, Mr. Whitaker observes, " Outside the park fences 

 Fallow-deer have for centuries been found in an almost wild 

 state in the New Forest and Epping Forest, and there is still a 

 remnant of an ancient herd in Rockingham Forest, although 

 their numbers are now reduced to about a dozen." To this 

 paragraph might be joined that on p. 72, where it is stated that 

 in the large tracts of open woodland around Haye Park, Here- 



