THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
Forest is said to have been devoid of deer before the coming of the Georges, 
the inhabitants of that part of West Sussex having been granted permission 
to kill them, owing to the damage done to the crops. Red deer never became 
quite extinct in the New Forest, although more than one edict has gone 
forth for their destruction, because private owners of small tracts always 
maintained a few whilst the slaughter was going on in the Grown lands, 
and this small nucleus was at any rate sufficient to keep the breed from 
becoming extinct. 
In the Royal Forest of Needwood, in Staffordshire, red deer existed 
until the nineteenth century, but in Worcestershire they are supposed 
to have become extinct during the Civil Wars. In Charles the Second’s 
reign large numbers of red deer still existed in the great forests of Row- 
land and Blackburn in Lancashire, Wensley Dale in Yorkshire, and 
throughout Cumberland, Northumberland and Westmorland, where they 
still survive on the Martindale Fells. Until recently they existed at Whin 
Fell, in the same county. From the Restoration until the Georges, nearly 
the whole of this forest area, extending from Staffordshire to the Scottish 
border, was reclaimed for agriculture, and the red deer were killed or 
driven northward into the great Caledonian Forest. At the present day 
an occasional stag is found in the high woods of Derbyshire, but their 
existence is probably due to some neighbouring park. 
It is necessary to give some account of the forest of Martindale and 
its adjacent deer ground, in the mountains of the English Lake District, 
for the red deer which inhabit it are more purely related to the original 
stock of British deer than those now found in most of the Scottish forests. 
Martindale is bounded on the north by the arms of Ullswater Lake, 
and on the east by Haweswater. The present herd is mostly to be found 
in the centre of Martindale, which includes the valleys of Boarsdale, 
Bannerdale, Rampsgill and Fusedale, whilst High Street, across which 
the Roman sappers made a military road, is one of their favourite haunts. 
In these wild carries the sea eagle built her nest so recently as the year 1800, 
and even to-day the marten ekes out a precarious existence amongst 
the broken crags. Pole -cats, too, lived here until quite recently. The badger 
is still there, but the wild cat has long since gone. Fortunately this forest 
is still unfenced, the deer roaming where they will. The sanctuary in 
Martindale is on a hill, locally known as The Nab, which lies between 
Rampsgill and Bannerdale. There is good feeding on the Nab, which has 
many fine grassy slopes, varied with bracken. Apparently the deer do 
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