out of season, though it be a truth that his venison is not equal to that of either the
red or fallow Deer, but he will serve to show how my dogs run.’ This is not a
correct estimate of the condition of the animal. Colquhoun tells us that he shot
several Roe deer ‘ as fat as good mutton,’ but this I think is a slight exaggeration, as
I have never seen the fattest Roe covered with fat on the buttocks as red and fallow
Deer and sheep often are when in high condition. I have seen hundreds of Roe
killed when in ‘ pride of grease’ in December and January, and in a district, too,
where Roe are far superior to those of Glenfalloch, Colquhoun’s shooting ground,
and have often seen them loaded with fat about the kidneys and inner parts, but
never with more than a little fat about the backbone and the top of the buttocks.
In Germany a good Roe will fetch eightpence a pound, but in Scotland it is
not worth more than twopence a pound.
Hunting and Shooting.— Until the time of Henry VIII., and possibly Elizabeth,
the Roe was hunted with horse and hound in a manner similar to that now employed
in France, where the chase is brought to a fine art. With the disappearance of the
Deer the practice of hunting them vanished, and was not again brought into use
until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Mr. Pleydell started his pack
in Dorsetshire in 1815. For sixteen years he hunted Roe, and was followed by
Mr. Yeatman of Stockhouse, Mr. James Harding of Misterton, Mr. Drax, and the
Radcliffes of Hyde, who hunted the country for thirty years.1 These regular packs
ceased hunting some time in the sixties, since when the Deer have generally been
coursed down or shot. A few years ago the late Lord Ilchester started a few couples
of hounds at Melbury, and his son probably keeps them on. With these hounds
and the Master I spent a most enjoyable day in the Blackmoor Vale combes in
1899.
When found in cover, Roe are very loth to leave a wood, and keep circling
slowly in front of hounds until they at last are forced to take to the open. They try
to confuse hounds by running among other Deer, and will resort to all the tricks of
the stag in putting out another Deer and occupying the recently vacated bed; but
once these artifices fail they rush from the cover and go off at a rattling pace, often
making a point as far as eight or nine miles. On the Downs they generally run up
hill, make a dash for a mile or two, and then stand at bay in the next ‘ coombe.’
About eight or ten Roe were killed in a season by the old packs, but Lord Ilchester
1 In a recently published work, The Roedeer by ‘ Snaffle,’ are long accounts of good runs with these hounds taken from
the pages of the Sporting Magazine of T824 and from the journals of Mr. Henry Symonds of Goswell, Mr. Pleydell of
Whatcombe, and Mr. C. J. Radcliffe of Hyde.