Roe Deer 
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naturally interested, particularly as he said that the roe had been there every year with his 
wife for the last three years and had spoilt many a stalk, nor would he ever place his own 
skin in danger. We had proceeded with caution more than half-way down the corrie 
without seeing anything, when, on the sky-line over a shoulder on the opposite hill, I saw 
some tufts of peat and grass being thrown into the air. Crawling forward carefully, we saw 
the old roebuck standing beside an isolated hummock of peat, which he was doing his very 
best to demolish. We watched him with interest for fully ten minutes, and if that imaginary 
ATTITUDE OF A ROE DEFENDING HERSELF 
foe had been alive he would have been dead, as the Irishman would say. There was not 
another beast in the corrie, and my companion was most anxious to have him in the larder, 
so, getting an easy chance, I shot him. He was a very large buck, and, what I have not seen 
before, his horns were worn entirely smooth on the outsides from the rough usage he had 
given them. 
When wounded and brought to bay by a dog, a roebuck brings into play both head and 
forelegs in his defence, using his horns as described and striking out with his legs, more as 
if to push off his antagonist than to cause a forcible blow, for he gives no shock, as a hind 
can. A doe too uses her forelegs and boxes with her head, and Mr. Steel, who has had a 
wide experience in roe-shooting, tells me that he has seen a doe use her hind legs as well. 
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