British Deer and their Horns 
7° 
does not reach 13 stone. 1 In some forests it ranges from 14 to 21 stone, but in most 
12 to 17 stone is the weight of a stag. In the Duke of Hamilton’s forest in the Isle of 
Arran the average weight is far heavier than anywhere on the mainland. Park stags 
were introduced into Arran about the year 1850. The largest of them (which, strange to 
say, carried the finest head ever seen there) was killed by Mr. H. Padwick in September 
1872. It weighed 28 stone 6 lbs. clean. 
The old wood stags of Perthshire and the deer of Beaufort woods still frequently reach 
25 stone, and the big stag of 30 stone 2 lbs. clean, killed by Col. the Hon. Alastair Fraser 
at the last-named place, is the heaviest Scotch stag of which I have any note. The statistics 
of the northern deer and those of north-western forests and many adjacent islands show a 
distinctly lower average of weight. A stag killed at Berriedale by the Duke of Portland, 
3rd October 1890—the largest taken in that forest for some years past—weighed 22 stone 
4 lbs., while the biggest killed at Black Mount in the present Marquis of Breadalbane’s 
time weighed 21 stone. Formerly, even in the late Lord Dudley’s tenancy, the Black 
Mount deer were not to be surpassed by any in Scotland. The great drives, however, which 
were latterly much in vogue in that forest did much to clear off the best of the great stags, 
and though the forest has since been most carefully worked, both in Mr. Daniel Cooper’s 
time and in that of the present owner, the deer are still inferior to their old form, both in 
body and head. I think that the change in the quality of the pasturage has much to do 
with it, for all the high grazing ground to which the deer naturally resort in the warm 
months is now becoming excessively poor, the grass being long and rank. A wonderful 
contrast this to the grazing on Ben Alder, but a few miles to the east. Here is a forest 
that has not received anything like the attention paid to Black Mount, and has changed 
hands again and again during the last few years, and yet, with the exception of a few bad 
years, the deer always scale well there and carry far better heads than the Black Mount 
animals. The last twenty stags killed in Black Mount in 1894 scaled on an average 
14 stone, whilst the last twenty killed by Lord Ilchester on Ben Alder in the same year 
showed an average of 16 stone. 
And now will my readers forgive a yarn or two about the Highland stalker ? He is a 
man worth studying, and, judging from those I have met, a good fellow and a pleasant 
companion. His intense love of the sport and the grand poetical surroundings of his home 
could hardly fail to make him so unless he be of such common clay that the beauties of 
nature and the healthful pursuit of his calling have no effect upon him. There may, of 
course, be such men, for there are “ bad uns ” in all grades and professions. Intensely 
practical is he, quaint and courteous, and though plain-spoken to a degree hardly permissible 
perhaps to other men, his speech is characteristic of himself, and as no offence is meant, 
none is ever taken. Sir Edmund Loder tells some good stories about his old stalker, John 
Ross, who was with the family for many years at Amot. Amongst other pursuits, Sir 
Edmund is given to botany, in which he takes great delight, and his rock garden at 
Leonardslee is famous. One season he was making a collection of mountain plants for this 
garden, and while out stalking he spent more time poking about amongst the rocks looking 
1 The height at shoulder of a good Scotch stag is about 42 inches, and the length from nose to tail along the back about 
68 inches. 
