CHAPTER VII 
FALLOW DEER 
Although undoubtedly an introduction, this beautiful species of deer may now be regarded 
as one of our own mammals, or we should have to exclude the rabbit, the three rats, and 
others, which would certainly make the British list rather small. It is generally agreed that 
the Romans brought the fallow deer to this country from Italy or some other part of the 
Mediterranean littoral, where the species has always been indigenous. 
Fallow deer present several different types. The true one, and that from which all the 
other divergences have originated, was more or less similar to those now found in the New 
Forest in a wild state. 
The following are the well-known types and varieties :— 
A. (True type) coats in winter very dark brown, with dun legs and bellies ; in summer 
fallow, i.e. light red with white spots. The brightness of the spots varies, but the colour 
never. They all change their coats simultaneously in May and October, just like wild roe. 
Taking England all over, this is nearly the commonest type, but a somewhat paler type 
is most often seen. Of the other varieties, the origin of their colours may, I think, be traced 
to absence or excess of colouring matter in the pigment of the skin, which has the effect of 
producing varieties, whether such irregularities are brought about by diet or other causes. 
When the varieties become so well marked as is here the case, we get in mixed herds every 
intermediate type between the white, the black, the pure dun colour, and the pure spotted 
form. 
B. The black variety is evidently a melanism. This type has black or blackish-brown 
saddle, with somewhat paler under-parts. Whilst the tendency of most deer is to have a 
darker coat in the winter, it is a curious fact that this form is undoubtedly much blacker in 
the summer than in winter. In several parks this variety alone is kept, and though it is 
often so stated, I fail to see that the species is hardier than other types or carries different 
horns. In some parks where their horns may vary from those grown by the light spotted 
type it is merely the result of individuals carrying on the rut. In large parks where all sorts 
herd together the horns are no better in one form than in another. This black type was for 
a long time supposed to have been introduced from Norway by James I., but Mr. Harting 
has clearly shown that it existed here long before that date. Most likely the black varieties 
