I cannot state positively the age attained by roe, but think it averages about twelve
years, and, judging from bucks in confinement and known bucks in a wild state, head-decline
seems to set in earlier than in any other species, though the bodies are in no way affected.
Probably the rarity o f good roe heads is due to this early head-decline, which takes place
generally after the eighth year. Assuming that a roe does not reach full head-maturity till
its fifth year, the period of fine horn-growth must therefore be very short.
Here is a good example o f horn-degeneration exemplified in the head o f a buck which
I knew for seven years at Murthly. Living on an outside beat, he was hardly ever molested,
and was so cunning as never to endanger his life till the autumn o f 1893, when Mr. Athol
Macgregor shot him. That gentleman kindly sent me the sku|^]thinking it was an
HEAD OF A VERY OLD ROEBUCK, THE HORNS HAVING, DECLINED
interesting one. This buck was in his prime when he first came to Gellies Wood, and, so
far as I recollect, had a good head for three cir four years, after which Keay (the keeper)
said it declined until it was shot in 1893.
Though not singular in this respect, roe will often grow their very best heads when
their bodies are in an emaciated condition. One o f the best heads I have shot was that of
a buck I killed at Kiltarlity in 1891. On examining the body, which was nothing but skin
and bone, I found that a charge of N o. 6 shot had simply riddled the poor little beast in the
previous autumn, and I doubt very much i f it could have lived many weeks longer. The
effects o f this shock to the system were shown in the tardy completion o f the new horns, for,
though the month was July, the horns were only just fraying. Curiously enough, the horns
themselves were extremely fine. Another buck in the Zoo Gardens, 1894, died of decline,
and was in a state o f decline during the whole of the last horn-growing period; he threw
out a far finer growth just before death than he had done in the previous years when in
first-rate health, the coronets being really fine.
A good roebuck’s head is certainly a thing o f beauty, and though not large, is well
worthy o f an honoured place on a sportsman’s walls. Perhaps its chief attraction lies in its
roughness, so characteristic o f the rugged hill-sides and shaggy woods where it loves to dwell.
The horns themselves are more liable to malformation than those o f any other deer,
for the animals, with their habits o f diving headlong through the cover when they are
frightened, and moving about at night when their horns are constantly in a soft condition,
strike them against obstacles. Wire fences too, when first put up, have much to answer for
in this respect. At Monymusk, where Sir Arthur Grant kills about forty in the year,
nearly half the heads have some deformity, which he attributes to wire fences. I f the reader
has ever seen a buck going through (or under) a wire fence when he is frightened, he will
then understand how the damage is done. In Germany these “ sport ” heads are looked
upon as great treasures, and large sums are paid for them. The three best I have seen are
here figured, two being in the collection o f the late C. Macpherson Grant, and now at
Drumduan House, Forres,1 and the third, an Irish one, in the possession o f Sir Henry
Gore Booth.
An average head measures 8 inches, with a brow point o f 2 inches, and a coronet
1 This fine collection includes many good heads shot and presented to the late C. Macpherson Grant by the late Basil
Brooke, a well-known roe-hunter of his day. Now it has passed into the possession o f Sir George Macpherson Grant, to whom
I am indebted for being allowed to reproduce the best heads.