Macpherson’s Fauna o f Lakeland. Here their favourite resort is Rampsgill in Martindale
Forest. Forty years ago these deer were estimated at 3 * and they were annually stalked by
Mr. Hasell o f Dale Main Hall, but since that time they have rapidly decreased in number.
According to the Hon. G. Lascelles,||me fifteen or twenty head o f th e ^ ig in a l wild red
deer still remain in the New Forest, Hampshire, and till a^comparatively recent date they
were found also in Woolmer Forest and in Cornwall. In Ireland, too, there are still the two
fine forests o f Muckross and Killarney, in which these deer have free range.
As to Scotland, it seems togfc thought by mahy that the deer foreSfehere are o f but
recent origin, and not infrequently we find them sarcastically referred to as the offspring of
a pernicious alliance between the nouveaux riches o f England and the impecunious Highland
lairds. But this /observation is rather smart than- true. It is true only do; this extent that,
owing to the wealth o f English sportsmen and their passion for deer-stalking, the demand
for forests in Scotland far exceeds the supply, and hence large tracts o f land quite unsuitable
for the purpose have been afforested, and $$ugh yielding but poor sport? jcommand big
figures in the market. But by comparison with the grand-.'old forests o f our Northern
neighbours these latter-day creations are simply nowhere. In the olden time the heads o f
Scottish clans were just as good sportsmen and as-.fond o f the chase as the English nobles,
and we have but to look into the early ballads and romances o f the sixteenth century to see
how much thought was given to the preservation and pursuit o f wild deer in the northJ|||
Scotland. A t this period Athole, Mar, and Glenartney were as famous for their- ceer forests
as they are to-day; and in 1549 Munro, High Dean o f the Isles, wrote, from personal
observation, o f the deer which frequented the Western Isles. Jura he refers tqr ias a fyne
forrest for deire,’? and Islay as 1‘ fertil, fruitful, and full o f natural grassing, with maney grate