64 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



istic of the district graze on the same hills as the Deer, and no 

 doubt depreciate the character of their food. Clarke tells us 

 that ' the Stag sometimes, in harvest, in the dead of the night, 

 leaves the mountain and comes into the cornfields. ... If he 

 stays two or three days, he so over-eats himself that he is easily 

 run down.' At the present time it is not unusual for the Stags 

 to visit fields of turnips during hard weather. When oats were 

 more extensively grown, the damage done by outlying stags 

 was often considerable. It was partly in consideration of the 

 heavy damage inflicted on their growing crops by Deer, that 

 Edward ill., in 1363, granted the men and tenants of Penrith, 

 Salkeld, and Soureby, in Englewood Forest, right of common 

 pasture for all their animals therein for ever. 1 But the stags 

 do not wander as much to the lower grounds as formerly. The 

 deer-keeper makes it his business to look out for outlying 

 animals, and to hound them back to Martindale with a cur- 

 dog specially trained to perform that duty. The animals are 

 increasing, and well they may, for only five stags are shot 

 annually. There are of course more hinds than stags or calves. 

 Possibly more female calves may be dropped than males, but the 

 deer-keeper tells me that the male calves have a harder struggle 

 for existence. The stag is jealous of a male calf in the rutting 

 season and drives it away from the hind, thus weaning 

 it at six months, and depriving it of a mother's care during its 

 first winter. The hind calves follow their mothers throughout 

 the winter, and have thus a better chance of obtaining food and 

 shelter than the male offspring of the herd. No disease has 

 ever been known to break out among these animals. They die 

 either from old age, or from gradual inanition, due to a deficiency 

 of food during the early spring months. In winter a good 

 many Eed Deer cross over to Place Fell, on the top of which 

 they find a fine strong growth of heather. 



1 Documents relating to Scotland, vol. iv. p. 20. 



