Red Deer 
29 
food is required, but those who are so fortunate as to own these luxuries are generally in a 
position to supply that which will improve both body and horn. Under any circumstances 
the sustenance must be kept up throughout the winter, i.e. from the end of October till late 
in the spring, the exact period varying according to the season. For regular feeding beans 
and maize are best, although acorns, crab-apples, ensilage, ivy, and hay make an agreeable 
change, and in the spring branches of thorn and ash are most nutritious. The deer will 
peel them as cleanly as rabbits. 
And now to Savernake Forest in Wiltshire, where so many happy hours of my life 
have been spent. It is not only the biggest, but, me judice , the fairest and most interesting of 
all our English parks, for here are preserved to us all the characteristic features of the 
primeval forest, and I can answer for it that in its enchanting solitudes trespassers have 
every chance of enjoying themselves to their hearts’ content. Well do I remember my 
daily foray into those delightful woods during the five years of my school life at Marlborough, 
and how I suffered in consequence at the hands of good Dr. Bell and my form masters. In 
the classical language of the tombstones, “ afflictions sore long time I bore,” to which I 
DOZING 
might add, in humble imitation of the original, “ canings were in vain.” No power on earth 
could keep me out of those woods, and when this was at last discovered by my worthy 
preceptors they gave up the attempt in despair, and shut their eyes to my delinquencies as 
often as they could. Then my catapult and I had a real good time of it, and scores of birds, 
more or less rare, fell victims to my thirst for information. Many of them are in my 
collection now, the one that I treasure most being a fine specimen of the blackcap warbler 
that I shot in the Doctor’s garden the day when he gave me my last swishing. 
As to the park itself, can anything be more delightful ? Four thousand acres in a ring 
fence ; and a real forest too—not what is commonly understood by that term across the 
Border—a huge wood, in fact, intersected by wide glades and magnificent beech avenues, in 
which the deer roam at large in all their pristine freedom. Robin Hood and his merry 
men would have been quite at home there. So was I, and never more happy than when 
lying among the brackens, watching the stags settling their little differences, like so many 
Christians, by trying to kill each other. 
One morning, much to my delight and to the envy of other boys, I found myself 
invited to breakfast with the noble owner of the park—“ the Markiss,” as we called him— 
