Once Now And Then A
Buck Escapes, And Is Found Eight Or Ten Miles Away.
If the pale were
removed how quickly the deer would leave the close forest which in
imagination is so associated with them!
It is not their ideal. They would
rather wander over the hills and along the river valleys. The forest is,
indeed, and always would be their cover, and its shadows their defence;
but for enjoyment they would of choice seek the sweet herbage, which does
not flourish where the roots of trees and underwood absorb all the
richness of the soil. The farther the trees are apart the better the
forest pleases them. Those great instinctive migrations of wild animals
which take place annually in America are not possible in England. The
deer here cannot escape - solitary individuals getting free of course, now
and then; they cannot move in a body, and it is not easy to know whether
any such desire remains among them. So far as I am aware, there is no
mention of such migrations in the most ancient times; but the omission
proves nothing, for before the Normans, before the game laws and parks
together came into existence, no one who could write thought enough of
the deer to notice their motions. The monks were engaged in chronicling
the inroads of the pagans, or writing chronologies of the Roman Empire.
On analogical grounds it would seem quite possible that in their original
state the English deer did move from part to part of the country with the
seasons.
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