THE RED DEER 
keeping their domestic charges from straying. It is doubtful, too, whether 
stalkers ever give much attention to farmyard animals, which they are 
inclined to treat with contempt. 
Apples and turnips are a favourite food, and both sexes invade the 
fields and orchards in the autumn. Hinds eat turnips very close, and are 
not particularly wasteful; but stags are most destructive in a field. When 
a stag bites a turnip he jerks it out of the ground and does not touch it 
again after the first mouthful, yet, curiously enough, he will pick up 
every grain of Indian corn that is scattered amongst the grass. When 
they can get into plots or kitchen -gardens carrots and cabbages are 
eaten freely, whilst potatoes are dug up with the fore -feet. In the spring 
they are fond of eating growing cereals, and in the autumn like nothing 
better than a wheatfield near a wood to lie in. The damage done to crops 
near their haunts is considerable, and their presence can only be coun- 
tenanced through the goodwill of the farmers. In Scotland the wealthy 
owner has to pay for damage in money, but in the west of England this 
compensation is not the real solatium to the men of the soil. It is the 
sport of stag -hunting , so dearly beloved , that Induces these western farmers 
to endure so much. 
Two years ago a number of continental sportsmen in Vienna were dis- 
cussing the various food products which created the finest horn growths, 
when one of them, a German, remarked, with a twinkle in his eye, “ I 
think we know very little about the subject, for the finest horned stag 
In Europe at the present moment is one kept by a butcher just outside 
Berlin, and he feeds it entirely on raw meat.” 
Two of the sportsmen present corroborated this astounding fact. 
Even when living in the open, deer sometimes forget that they are no 
longer in the woods and go fast to sleep in the daytime. Mr Steel and I 
on one occasion almost touched a stag on an open hillside. We had stalked 
him in July for a little practice, and when within three yards found he 
was absolutely sound asleep. McCook, the stalker at Ben Alder, once 
caught a stag that was fast asleep in the middle of the day. I never saw a 
more remarkable instance of natural instinct in avoiding danger than one 
September day at Glencarron in Ross-shire. The stalker and I were working 
up and around a herd of deer in which there was a fine nine -pointer, which 
we were engaged in stalking on the south face of Glennig. On topping the 
crest we suddenly found ourselves confronted by a stag of perhaps four 
or five years old. He saw us exactly at the moment we saw him, and instead 
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