Scottish Red Deer. 
9 
No. 14. 
No. 14. 
Lent by : W. Radcliffe, Esq. 
Shot by : The late Roualeyn Gordon-Cumming 
Locality : Glenstrathfarrar, Inverness-shire. 
Date : Circa 1845. 
Length : 36A inches. 
Beam : 5 inches. 
Inside Span : 37 inches. 
Outside Spread : 41 inches. 
Tip to Tip : 34 inches. 
Remarks : The right horn has been injured above 
the bay point, which may have given an 
additional span to the inside measurement. 
The following note, made by the late 
Lord Powerscourt, was sent by Mr. Radcliffe 
with the head : 
The stag that bore this head was killed in Lord 
Lovat's forest of Glenstrathfarrar, Inverness-shire, by 
the late Roualeyn Gordon-Cumming, the celebrated 
African hunter. I was acquainted with him and 
also with his brother, the late Sir Alexander Penrose 
Gordon-Cumming, and I often had conversations with 
them both about R oualeyn's adventures in Africa and 
in Scotland. I saw this head in his collection at that 
time, about 1858-59, when he used to exhibit his African 
and other sporting trophies by the Caledonian Canal at 
Fort Augustus. 
He was very poor, and used to support himself by 
this exhibition, where he used to attend in his Highland 
dress, and a magnificent figure he was, some six feet 
four in height and a very powerful man, and he used 
to relate his sporting adventures and explain his 
collections at a charge of one or two shillings, or there- 
abouts. The steamers plying on the Caledonian Canal 
between Inverness and Banavie had to stop at Fort 
Augustus for an hour or more, passing through the locks, 
and the passengers used to land and visit his exhibition. 
Passing down the Canal on mv way from the Highlands 
in 1859, I landed with others and was talking to him, 
and I remarked this fine head, which is forty-one inches 
wide and has eleven points. He said, " If everyone 
had their rights, that head belongs to Lord Lovat, 
for 1 shot the stag in his forest." Gordon-Cumming was 
known in Scotland as a great poacher, and was often 
after deer where he had no business to be, but few dared 
to interfere with him. He said that he wanted the head, 
as it was the widest he had ever seen in Scotland. In those 
days deer forests were not so strictly preserved as they are now, 
and on the hills, which were grazed by sheep, stags were shot 
without any interference by anyone ; that was about the year 
1845 or 1846. Through the kindness of Mr. St. George Little- 
dale, I got the following story of how Gordon-Cumming killed 
his stag. He had it from a stalker named Colin Campbell, who 
had it, I believe, from his father. I give it in his own words : 
" The stag was spotted by the stalker in charge of the beat 
where the stag had his home, and, as is very often the case when 
you are keen on a good head, that is often when you do not get 
him. However, the stalker, after a day or two of unsuccess, 
was told to keep his ears and eyes open, in case Gordon-Cumming, 
who was in the neighbourhood, might get hold of the head. 
Some gentleman near by died, and the sportsman went to the 
funeral, giving instructions to his stalker not to go unless he saw 
that Gordon-Cumming went ; if so, he might go. Gordon- 
Cumming put on his Highland dress and walked along the road, 
when he met the stalker, who asked him what he was going to 
do with a rose he happened to have in his button-hole at a 
funeral ? Gordon-Cumming replied that when everything was 
over he would leave him the rose. The stalker got it, shifted 
his clothes, and proceeded to the funeral. When Gordon- 
Cumming got round the corner he took a circuit route and made 
for the stag, and in three hours had the head off the stag. 
The stalker, having heard the shot, made for the direction of 
the sound, where he found the carcase with the rose by its 
side !— (Signed) Colin Campbell " 
Roualeyn Gordon-Cumming died in 1866, and I bought the 
stag's head at the sale of his collection in London after his 
death. Powerscourt. 
December 16th, 1809. 
