68 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



of huge oaks and timber woods and fallow deer, do better 

 witness their antient and present greatness and worth, than 

 the painted vanities of our times do grace our new upstarts.' 

 Many a haunch of venison reached Sir Daniel Fleming from 

 his cousin at Milium between the years 1656 and 1688. Gene- 

 rally, the present consisted of half a buck or half a doe ; but 

 when the Judges were entertained at the Carlisle Assizes in 

 1661 an entire buck was sent for the banquet all the way from 

 Millom. Good-fellowship ran strongly in those days, and the 

 Cumberland Gallants were as welcome to hunt at Millom as at 

 Naworth, or any other great baronial seat. John Kirkby wrote to 

 his nephew, ' D.[aniel] F.peming] ' at Rydal, on June 2 2d, 1657 : 

 ' I have had some discourse with your cousin Kirkby concern- 

 ing the "intended progress of hunting" of the Cumberland 

 Gallants. When you go to Naworth, you may tell them that 

 Sir William [Hudlestonjs absence need not hinder their hunting 

 at Millom. Your cousin Kirkby, who has command of the 

 game in Sir William's absence, will shew them all sport for the 

 killing of a brace of bucks, and give them such accommodation 

 as his little house will afford.' 1 



Dickinson has given a somewhat full account of the end of 

 the Fallow Deer at Millom, asserting that, at the end of the last 

 century, the Earl of Lonsdale decided to dispark this estate, 

 partly in consequence of complaints of outlying bucks damaging 

 crops, partly because in hard weather the Deer diminished the 

 grazing available for cattle : ' The herd numbered about one 

 hundred or a little over, and, when the order came for their 

 destruction, a sale was effected with a speculator from Darlington 

 at a pound a head.' He assures us that an attempt to capture 

 the Deer in nets having failed, the herd was shot down seriatim 

 by five of the neighbouring yeomen, who persevered in the work 

 of slaughter ' till only two remained of the herd. These were 

 long watched, until one was brought down, but the other was 

 too wily to allow of being shot. At last the hounds were 

 collected, and he was hunted and broke bounds, and afforded a 

 few capital runs before the last of the herd was finally torn 

 down. And so ended the race of the " harts and hinds, wild 

 1 Rydal MS. , p. 22. 



