THE RED DEER 
The longest Scottish head which I have seen and measured is one of 
41 inches. It was got in Strathglass, near Fasnakyle, many years ago. 
The greatest span over all of any Scottish head is one killed by the 
late Lord Tankerville at Ardverikie.* It measured 42 inches. The 
head obtained by the late Roualeyn Gordon -Gumming, in Glen Strath- 
farrar, is 39^ inches span, but this deer evidently injured the right horn 
during growth, which makes the span abnormal. In 1897 Mrs James 
Platt at Inver lochy got a head with a span of 38 inches, and in the late 
Duke of Fife’s collection at Mar there are two heads with extreme spans 
of 40 inches and 39 inches. The big Guisachan royal is 39^ -inch span, 
and a stag shot by Mr Smithson at Killiechonate is 38 inches. The remark- 
able ten -point Kinlochewe head got in 1814 is 38| inches over all. 
The best Scottish head I have seen and measured (now figured) was 
obtained by a farmer in his cornfield near Aberfeldy, in September, 1889. 
It is a perfect royal with long points, and 40 inches long and 40 inches 
wide. Such a trophy, in fact, that the sportsman (in Scotland at least) 
dreams of but never sees. Practically equal is the big Guisachan royal 
killed by the late Lord Tweedmouth, but the points are not quite so long. 
This stag generally lived in the Beaufort Woods, and only twice visited 
Guisachan, but the second time old Maclennan saw him and came rushing 
into the house to announce the fact, and within an hour Lord Tweedmouth 
had killed him. Scarcely inferior is the great Eskdale head which is 
thicker and rougher than either; all the foregoing were “ wood ” stags. 
After this we can compare at least thirty super-excellent heads, on which 
all manner of tastes might differ, but which any sportsman might be 
proud to have slain after a lifetime in the northern forests. 
The record number of points carried by a Highland stag is twenty-two. 
This head, somewhat malformed, is of a stag killed in the Cromarty Woods 
early in the nineteenth century. For some years it hung in Cromarty 
House, but was afterwards presented by Mr Hay Mackenzie to Lord 
Londonderry. Sir Philip Egerton says it carried twenty-two points, and 
the animal itself “ appeared to have been diseased.” See also ‘‘Lays of 
the Deer Forest” (Vol. II, p. 113), by the brothers Sobieski Stuart, and 
‘‘Natural History of Deeside and Braemar,” by MacGillivray, 1855. 
With regard to the twenty -pointer shot by the late Lord Burton at 
Glenquoich, I have not the least doubt that it was an English park stag, 
*A head, belonging to Sir John Ramsden, obtained at Ardverikie many years ago, was set up by Messrs Spicer 
& Sons in 1912. It measures 41 inches in extreme span, and is probably from the stag killed by Lord Tankerville. 
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