THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
when a great fair was held in the park and the deer were removed to Bushey 
Park. There were also many Fallow deer in St James’s Park, which was 
walled in by Henry VHI; and they remained there until nearly the end 
of the eighteenth century. 
In England there are about 390 parks in which Fallow deer are kept, 
and nearly every year one or more small enclosures are added. Blenheim 
usually contains as many as from 900 to 1,000 fallow deer; whilst Woburn 
and Petworth carry from 600 to 700 head. 
Scotland has but few parks containing Fallow deer. Those from 
Drummond Castle and Kinnaird Castle holding the best; whilst in 
Ireland the Fallow deer of Kenmare and Hazelhatch are exceptionally line. 
Those of the New Forest, in Hampshire, are probably the oldest wild 
herd in this country, and date from a period prior to the Conquest; perhaps 
from the time of Canute. They have always been quite unrestricted, and 
there is no record of any cross except by certain individuals which 
were introduced by James I from Norway. It is curious to note that 
they are quite uniform in their summer and winter coats; but this is 
also the case with the rufous form found in parks. 
Epping, like the New Forest, from the time of the Conquest, has always 
been regarded as “ a place for the shelter and preservation of the King’s 
deer.” 
In Saxon times, one Tovi, a standard-bearer to King Canute, ” induced 
by the abundance of deer,” built a number of houses at Waltham in the 
forest, and created Epping as a royal hunting ground. Henry I granted 
the citizens of London a day’s hunting in the forest, and thus originated 
what is known as the ‘‘ Epping Hunt.” Henry HI granted the same rights 
in 1226, and the privilege survived until recently. Henry VHI, Queen 
Elizabeth, and James I constantly hunted there; and the forest was 
preserved more or less intact until 1851, when a great part of it (Hainault) ' 
was disafforested by Act of Parliament. 
The Epping Forest Fallow deer were known as ‘‘the old forest breed,” 
and in 1887 numbered from eighty to one hundred; but of late years have ii 
much increased. They roam about in small parties, keeping to the thickest 
and most unfrequented parts of the forest. Numbers of wild Fallow existed I 
in the Forest of Dean and in the wastes of Flavant until the middle of the « 
last century and, until recently, some of the old breed existed in Sherwood ■ 
Forest, where Robin Hood hunted with his Merry Men. A few are said || 
to exist still in Rockingham Forest. 
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