220 
British Deer and their Horns 
when Mr. Corballis shot it, and who had probably seen as many roe bagged as any single 
shooter of his day, said it was the best example of Scotch roe he had ever seen. That on 
the left lived in the Strathallan and Trinity-Gask woods (Perthshire) for several years. 
My two uncles had Trinity-Gask at this time, and I saw the roe one day cross the ride where 
I was posted, but, alas ! too far out. My father, however, got a shot at him in the next beat, 
and he was not seen again alive. Mr. P. D. Malloch, later in the same year, obtained the 
head from the keeper and kindly presented it to me. He says it is the best that ever 
passed through his hands. Its chief beauty is its thickness and pearly roughness, which 
extends right up the horns. 
I have also the best three-horned roebuck that I have seen. Heads with three 
coronets are not rare, but as a rule the third horn is merely a snag or thin spire. In this 
case all three horns are well developed, though 
one lacks the third point. It was found by Johnny 
Ross at Beaufort. There is another head too that 
is worthy of notice from the unusual size of the 
coronets and long brow points. Round each 
coronet, y§ inches ; tape taken straight round both 
coronets, 11 inches ; brow points, 4f- inches. It 
was given to me by Dr. Ogilvie Grant of Inverness, 
and was shot near that town. 
Though the feeding is so good at Cawdor, 
and there are so many roe, a good head is seldom 
obtained. The best normal head in the Castle was 
shot by Lord Emlyn in 1895 ; it is a good strong 
head of 9 inches with a 6-inch span. Several 
three-horned examples have been killed at Cawdor, 
one of which is in the British Museum, but the 
most remarkable specimen ever obtained there was 
a buck which carried no less than four distinct 
coronets with horns on them (see p. 219). It is 
the only British example of such an abnormality 
that I know of, but there are several German heads of that description. I examined 
this head just after it was skinned, and it certainly looked far better on the skull 
than it now does as a stuffed specimen in the British Museum, for the hair almost 
hides one of the coronets and its little horn. 
One of the most curious things that strikes the sportsman and traveller is that 
three houses—Beaufort Castle, Blair Castle, and Scone Palace—have no collections of 
roe to speak of, particularly so as their past and present owners had every oppor¬ 
tunity of making splendid ones had they wished to. All three contain just a few 
very ordinary heads, though each has one exception. The Duke’s smoking-room at 
Blair contains a very thick but short specimen that was killed by a retriever at 
Strathord five or six years ago, and in Scone Palace there is one splendid head 
of 11 inches, which would be perfect were the horns not so close together. 
12-POINTER IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. H. M. WARRAND 
