NEW ZEALAND RED DEER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2073, 7 May 1907, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND RED DEER.

A further contribution to tlic controversy regarding the ancestry of the herd of red deer which lias done so well in the Wairarapa district has arrived from England in the form of a letter from the Hon. J. W. Fortescue; who writes as follows from Wind-

sor Cnstlo to Mr. T. E. Donne, head of the New Zealand Tourist Department;—“Both the trout and the deer in New Zealand seem to grow bigger and bigger. The photographs of the hags’ heads which you sent interest mo particularly, for unless 1 am very much lnistakon the forefathers ot the New Zealand deer came from Windsor Park, and they in their turn, as t have ascertained by searching the archives of tho seventeenth century, woro imported from Germany in tho time of King Charles the Second, ill order to make good tho havoc wrought by poachers during tho civil war. I am Bonding the photographs oi the heads to Prince Christian, who lias a line collection of heads and has shot deer in all tho forests of Europe.” This is evidently later information than was supplied to Mr. 'Tripp by a formor mail from Captain Campbell, through the medium of tlio High Commissioner in London, and may be taken as settling a very interesting point about which hitherto there has boon sonio doubt.

Mr Donne, who has made a special study of the heads of Gorman doer, states that there is a close resemblance botwcou them and many of the stags’ heads obtained in the Wairarapn district. At the St. Louis Exposition tile German department oi forestry and game had its exhibit quite close to tho New Zealand exhibit, so that Mr. Donne had an excellent opportunity of comparing the stags’ heads from tho two countries. Tlio similarity of the indicated horns was evident, but tlio principal difference between the Scottish heads and tlio German heads is, he says, tlio curly long hair on the brows of tho latter, which is also a noticeable feature of the stags of the Wairarapu herd.