open park. It is wonderful, however, how near one can get even under these circumstances
by patience. T h e thing to do is to lie down and advance gradually a few yards at a time,
always allowing time for the animals to allay their suspicion; for even with such comparatively
tame creatures as park red deer, i f one attempts to get near them all at once the
chances are that they will keep continuously on the move. Due care then being exercised,
the observer can often lie down within twenty yards o f a herd and with a glass see even a
starling pick a fly out o f the corner o f a stag’s eye.1 During this month in which I am writing
(July) the deer are troubled by flies in the hot weather, and will permit much the same
familiarity on the part o f the starlings as the cattle and game o f South Africa allow to the
rhinoceros bird. Yesterday (13th July) whilst I was drawing the stag whose horn-growth
figures later on, a starling remained on the upper part o f his face, catching flies with
surprising agility for more than a quarter o f an hour. T h e stag was. evidently grateful for
the ministrations o f his small friend, for I actually saw him close his left eye and keep
blinking it when a fly had entered, whilst the starling, who seemed to understand the situation
at once, reached down over the eyebrow and skilfully extracted the insect.
The jackdaws, too, were another source o f amusement in the spring. When building
in the tower o f Warnham Court they are exceedingly fond o f lining their nests with deer’s
1 The following note in the Field of 18 th July 1896 is interesting as an illustration of the polite attentions of the
feathered tribe in ridding cattle of their insect pests. The writer says, “ I noticed on July T o a Jersey cow lying down,
and a couple of fowls picking the flies from her eyes and head generally ; she evidently was having a good time, wagging her
ears, and putting .her head in most convenient position.”
hair, preferring, apparently, the hair o f the red deer to that o f the fallow. T o collect the
cast patches o f hair lying about would be far too honest and simple a proceeding for birds
whose rascally propensities are only equalled by their love o f mischief, so they generally
obtained their material direct from the animal itself. And this was the way they managed
it. Habitually suspicious o f danger, they would never alight directly, as starlings do, on a
deer s back, but settling in pairs close to <5ne o f the herd, they would commence strutting
around with an air o f innocence and unconcern that would deceive the most wary beast that
ever lived, and then when the deer lowered his head to feed, or looked away at some object
in the distance, one o f the rascals would fly up suddenly, and, pouncing on a bunch o f loose
hair which he had previously “ spotted,” would carry it off in triumph.
One o f the many advantages o f observing deer in a park is the opportunity it affords
for detecting the apparently subtle means by which red deer communicate to each other the
presence o f danger, and this can be readily done by simply betraying one’s presence when
within a few yards o f the herd. On one occasion, after showing myself to a single old hind,
she at once, by her strained attention and quick veering round, made her fear known to the
animals alongside, who at once took the hint, all except two yearling calves who were
feeding close to her. I then saw a very pretty display o f red deer education. T h e .tw o
yearlings continued feeding without looking up, and the old lady, noticing their disregard,
approached each in turn and touched him lightly with the point o f her foot, after which
she again faced round and looked carefully at the spot where my head had appeared. One
o f the yearlings then topk the hint, but the other, after looking up, began to feed again
with leisurely indifference. This was a bit too much for the now irate mother, so rushing
at her disobedient child, she administered such a blow with one o f her forelegs as to knock
the unfortunate youngster clean off his legs. Nor is this practice confined to hinds ; old
stags will frequently communicate with each other by the rough-and-ready method of
striking with a foreleg.
Red deer in parks, even where their range is restricted, are more or less governed by
the same laws, and act in the same free-and-easy fashion, as their wild relations ; and the