Fallow Deer 
I believe he can judge to a nicety exactly how near he dare go without provoking a head¬ 
long charge, for he funks that, and knows that the first hard blow counts for as much with 
fallow bucks as with men. Having gained a point, we will say generally under a tree thirty 
or forty yards away, there he stands and glares at the prospect of love or war before him. 
His proximity is generally the cause of his bringing matters soon to a head, and it often 
happens that at the very last moment his valour vanishes as the big buck turns on him, for he 
makes off as hard as his legs can carry him. Ag in, I have waited till I was chilled to the 
bone, expecting to see the errant knight set to work and start to fight, but he has remained 
in one or two positions simply staring the whole blessed day without approaching a yard 
nearer, merely giving a sighing grunt as much as to say, “ I should like to fight, but-” 
H ow like poor human nature ! Then again there is the buck who means business from the 
J 53 
round and emit a succession of grunts one after the other, and does not exercise the same 
care in keeping his harem away from outsiders that the stag does. 
After the usual fights which the big buck has to pass through in the first instance to gain 
his wives, the serious trouble of keeping them together begins. Now let us watch another 
rival, who perhaps is scarcely as good, and who has as yet been a bachelor but is now love-sick. 
He really means to annex some of the fair ones, so let us see what he will do. If he really 
means to fight, you will notice that he is not feeding, or only taking nibbles now and again. 
Gradually he works nearer and nearer to the objects of his affections and their guardian, and 
BUCKS FIGHTING 
X 
