174 British Deer and their Horns 
down in my father s time on account of the great damage they did to the young plantations, 
and the numbers killed in the first few months were something fabulous.” 
The largest number of roe I have myself seen in one day was in a big wood round 
Cawdor Castle in 1891. For the first time for many years the undergrowth had all been 
cut away, and the roe, which were extremely numerous, would not even then leave the 
wood. I was out at daybreak, and soon after leaving the Castle with Sutherland, the 
head keeper, we saw no less than six bucks all together, standing by the “ rings,” which 
I shall presently describe. Every few minutes we saw, as we moved about,—and we could 
see everything within 200 yards,—the roe making off, and by ten o’clock we estimated that 
we had observed for certain at least fifty roe. On a higher part of the ground, later on in 
FEEDING ON THE ROWAN BERRIES 
the day, I must have seen some twenty more. Very properly the roe at Cawdor are never 
much harassed, and the ground does not seem to become stale to them, as it does in so 
many places. Till 1892 more roe could be doubtless shot on Beaufort than on any other 
estate, but now they are sadly on the decrease there. The following few statistics may be 
interesting to sportsmen. The late C. Macpherson Grant, who had the autumn shooting of 
Beaufort for two years, told me that he and his party in one day in Farley Wood, Beaufort, 
killed sixty-five roe, besides thirteen hinds and thirteen woodcock. Fifty have several times 
been killed in the same wood by the late Lord Lovat and his parties, and so far as I recollect, 
Johnny Ross, the stalker on Altnacliach and Boblainey beats, told me that thirty-five had 
been killed in a day’s shooting there. There are a great number of roe in that wood, but 
it is terribly rough both to walk and to beat. 
In Westerton wood, between Elgin and Forres, as many as forty roe have been killed in 
