Red Deer 
that time (1877) at Dr. Hawtrey’s school at Slough, and my'mother being on a visit at 
Stoke Park, I too was asked to spend a day there. I went twice, and on the second occasion 
Mr. Coleman kindly offered me half a crown for a sketch of one of his big stags, which I at 
once proceeded to make. And now, mark this. Landseer was a frequent guest at Stoke— 
Landseer, on whose knee I had sat some years before and shown him how a stag should be 
drawn ; yet he was never asked to draw any of the stags. I was. I drew the stag and got 
the coin, my first commission as an artist ! The conclusion, I venture to hope, is obvious ; 
it would be too great a shock to my modesty to draw it myself. 
For some regrettable reason many of the Stoke stags, shortly before the herd was split 
up and sold, were allowed to become very tame. The result proved the folly of such a 
THE HERD OF WHITE RED DEER, WELBECK, I 896 
proceeding, for three owners of parks—Lord Ilchester, Sir Edmund Loder, and Mr. Charlie 
Lucas—who each bought some of the stags, were all unfortunate in their possessions. 
Lord Ilchester bought six young animals, which, as they arrived at maturity, showed 
such audacity and fearlessness of man that in the rutting season the park at Melbury became 
unsafe. Most of these creatures he gave to Lord Burton, who turned them out in the forest 
of Glenquoich, where they doubtless improved the breed of the wild deer in the north¬ 
west of Scotland. 
Sir Edmund Loder was equally unlucky, and was obliged to shoot his at Whittlebury 
for similar reasons. 
Of the two that Mr. Charlie Lucas obtained, one proved a good stag and behaved 
himself properly ; but the other turned savage quite suddenly one day in the rutting season. 
Some members of the family were just going in to dinner at Warnham when loud cries 
for help were heard apparently from a cluster of oaks near the house, and almost immediately 
