Fallow Deer 
*47 
pared to say that every fallow buck is as cute an old fox as this one, but once he has reached 
maturity, which may be placed at six years, and is hunted with either shot-gun or rifle, I 
think that the fallow buck displays a resource and an ingenuity far exceeding that of the 
red deer. Last year (1895) I had occasion to shoot a number of fallow in two different 
parks. The animals were tame enough till the first shot was fired, then they were all off 
and on the qui vive, and would try every ruse, such as breaking back, dodging behind trees, 
and keeping constantly on the move, immediately one stopped to shoot. 
Of course comparisons are always odious, and the fallow deer’s love for cover at once 
puts him aside as a much inferior beast of the chase to the red deer. Perhaps too what 
most men admire so much in the stag is his dignified grace, machine-like action, and fine 
free-moving shoulder. This the fallow buck lacks. He sometimes starts off with a show 
as if he too could display on a lesser scale those gallant strides, but it is a poor imitation, 
and he is in his trotting movements but a potterer at the best. 
It is, I think, best to separate one’s remarks here, first giving a few notes on the animals 
in a wild state and then of their lives under more restricted conditions. 
The Dunkeld district may now be regarded as the permanent home of the species 
in Scotland, and they have certainly increased during the past twenty years throughout 
the heavily-wooded country over which they roam. My father during this time always 
had a shooting in this district, and for thirteen years we occupied Murthly, which was 
frequently visited by the deer in their passage from their western boundary, Rohallion, to 
Snaigow, Cardney, and the Dunkeld woods. They always crossed the Tay at one particular 
place above Stenton, and, never staying very long, were seldom shot. Jimmy Keay used to 
rush in and say there was a big buck feeding in such and such a turnip field, and I used on 
my part to rush out, find nothing, come back and tell Jimmy he must really sign the pledge. 
That big buck used to feed regularly for one morning in the same spot, and when you got 
up at unearthly hours and crawled through damp woods to encompass his destruction, news 
arrived that he had been seen feeding quietly in another turnip field six miles away. 
The fallow bucks quite spoiled our tempers at one time, and it is wonderful how 
horribly bloodthirsty a man becomes after a period of “ sells.” So one day when Mr. 
Bett sent down a note from Rohallion asking me to come up at once and help to assassinate 
two black bucks that had climbed down the rocks and jumped into the Buffalo Park the 
game was altogether too sweet. 
The Buffalo Park, I may say, has an interesting history ; it was where the late Sir 
William Stewart kept his buffaloes which he brought over from Western America. Sir 
William was one of the first men “ out west,” and his life was a complete romance ; the 
mystery attending his death has never yet been solved. Certain aspersions were cast on 
his pluck after Waterloo, and to show that they were false he went out to the Rocky 
Mountains and lived amongst the Sioux for five years. There he became a first-class bandit, 
but displayed such courage that they made him a chief. Wearying of his wild life, he 
returned to Murthly, bringing with him, however, about a dozen of his pals amongst the 
Sioux and a herd of buffaloes. The latter he lodged in a beautiful park at Rohallion, 
surrounding it with a stone wall seven feet high and with a wire fence on the top of that. 
The Red Indians, however, were not so easily housed or kept quiet. In a word, they played 
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