CHAPTER II 
RED DEER (Cervus elaphus') 
To the scientific naturalist a monograph on British Cervidae, as this is intended to be, may 
seem incomplete when the early history of this, our best-known deer, is but lightly 
touched upon ; but it must be remembered that I am writing mainly for sportsmen and 
field naturalists, whose interests are not altogether of the antiquarian order; and though 
I have myself given much time and attention to the study of fossil and other remains, 
and the strata in which they are found, other writers on natural history have had the 
audacity to anticipate my remarks in so able and exhaustive a fashion that on this point 
there is hardly anything left for me to say. 
The very earliest stratum in Great Britain which yields remains of an animal identical 
with the red deer of to-day is found in the red crag at Newbourne, Suffolk. Through 
the succeeding ages—the early Pliocene and Pleistocene periods down to historic times— 
we have a continuous chain of evidence showing that the species always existed in numbers 
in this country ; and from what is left to us of their skulls and horns we see that when 
our little islands formed part of the great ‘Continent of Europe the stags must have 
approached in size the great continental form of the animal, their fuller development 
being arrested by the climate of our more northern latitude. Finally, with insular isolation 
came further degeneration, as manifested by a still greater decline in the size of horns and 
skulls of animals born at a later period. 
The landing of the Caesars, or rather perhaps the conquest by the Normans, marked 
the introduction of an era when men hunted rather for the sake of sport and exercise 
than for food and the luxury of fresh meat. It was the barons and dependants of the 
Conqueror—great lovers of the chase—who, in order to have game always at hand, began 
to make great enclosures in the virgin forests of Southern Britain for protecting the deer. 
Indeed the chase seems to have been the chief delight of all the early English kings, and 
they spent much of their time on horseback amidst these wooded glades. 
The number of these parks increased gradually till the time of Cromwell, at which 
period they were probably more numerous than they are to-day, for, labour being abundant 
and cheap, walls and fences were quickly run up and the deer driven in. But the Round- 
heads would have nothing of this sort. With their craze for pulling down anything and 
