THE DEER OF EPPING FOREST. 61
the latter were not to be taken so easily ; it required much care on the
part of the beaters not to alarm them too much, and to make them
head in the right direction. Sometimes they would decline to be
driven, especially if a bit of open ground intervened between the
coverts ; and, boldly facing the beaters, they would break back to the
woods behind them, astonishing us with their wonderful powers of
leaping. The bucks seemed much more wary and cautious than the
does : the latter often went headlong towards the nets, but the
former would stop short, sniff the air, and look about, as if suspecting
some hidden danger, and then dash off to the right or left, and
escape. Failing to secure another buck, we had to be content with
a couple of does for the Zoological Society, three or four others, not
wanted, being restored to liberty.
We left off in the evening twelve miles from a railway station, and
the deer-van had to travel slowly, to avoid shaking its occupants
unduly. Being anxious not to keep them in the van an hour longer
than was necessary, I resolved, in company with Mr. Porter, to
travel all night with them. We got the deer-van on to a truck at
Blandford, and reached Waterloo Station at four o'clock the next
morning. No livery stables being opened at so early an hour, there
was difficulty in procuring a horse. Necessity, however, as usual,
became the mother of invention, and a cab-horse was borrowed at the
station, with which we got the deer to Liverpool Street Station, and
soon had the van on a Great Eastern truck in time for the first train
for Loughton. Here Mr. E. N. Buxton, having been duly apprised
by telegraph of our movements, met us with a horse of his own, which
took the van safely into the forest; and at half-past nine (in less
than twenty-four hours from the time of capturing the first doe) the
sliding-door of the van was withdrawn, and the roes were at liberty
in another county. They bore the journey uncommonly well,
showing no signs of lameness or injury of any kind, as they bounded
from the cart, and one by one disappeared from view amongst the
underwood. Two were kept back for the Zoological Gardens, where
they were safely deposited the same afternoon.26
Whatever may be said of the destructive habits of deer, I cannot but
think that the naturalists of Essex will rejoice to welcome back within
the limits of this forest the timid roe, which years ago existed here, and
to reckon once more amongst the larger mammalia of the county the
three kinds of deer which I have here attempted to give some account.
26 Since these lines were written it is satisfactory to be able to state that the does have dropped
fawns, and the little stock of roes has been increased.