148 British Deer and their Horns 
the very deuce, and soon had the country-side in a state of terror. They used to drive 
about in a lifeboat on wheels, and drawn by six cart horses, but varied existence by 
occasionally swooping down on a farmhouse, scaring the inmates and making free with 
whatever they could lay their hands on. These little escapades were of course always 
squared afterwards, and none enjoyed the fun more than Sir William, who was very popular 
with his people. If my reader is a lover of Punchy which he is pretty sure to be, he 
will recollect a drawing by John Leech of Mr. Briggs being taken through the Buffalo Park 
by his friend. That friend was my father, and Mr. Briggs was of course Leech himself. 
I have often heard the story about that day amongst the buffaloes. 
By and by the buffaloes died off or were killed, and the last old bull broke out of the 
park somehow, and meeting the mail coach going north, proceeded to knock the stuffin’ 
out of the horses. But there was an unfeeling man on the coach who had a rifle and no 
sense of humour, so the last of the Scotch buffaloes had to go. 
But to return to our fallow bucks which had delivered themselves into the hands of 
DOES AND CALVES 
the destroyers — at least so we thought. To make a long story short, we never even got 
a shot at them the first day, though the park was not of great size. The next day I got a 
chance at one of the bucks at about forty yards and broke his foreleg, and we now made 
sure of him, but just as both the bucks were coming on nicely to Keay, the unwounded one 
smelt a rat, made a jump, and scrambled right up the high stone wall and squeezed himself 
under the wires at the top, being immediately followed by the second buck, whom we 
considered quite incapable of performing such a feat. The above is an absolute fact, and 
the keepers, Mr. Bett, and myself were alike astonished at the agility displayed by the 
beasts. What an animal like the deer will jump when he is fairly put to it by fear or 
impulse is a very different thing from their actions of calmer moments. I have never had 
an opportunity of testing the length of the fallow deer’s sight compared with that of red 
deer, but I am convinced that where it is necessary for them to use their eyes for self¬ 
protection the sight is quicker even than roe, and much quicker than red deer. Their 
powers of scent are perhaps about equal to red deer and superior to roe. Fallow deer in 
big woods nearly always lie very close, and then break back through the beaters. In 
proportion to its size a fallow buck is very tenacious of life, much more so than red deer, 
and requires to be struck in the right place. 
