THE NORTH OTAGO HERD.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, 13 March 1908, Page 1

THE NORTH OTAGO HERD.

AN IMPORTANT BREEDING QUESTION. ! . (By Allan Gordon Cameron in the- :,. "Weekly Press.") , j The question of culling out stags i with malformed heads, and also old 1 hinds, from the North Otago herd of ■ red deer has been much debated during the past yeac, and Mr E. Hardcastle, who has stalked in the district for the past several seasons, and taken a , keen interest in the welfare of the i herd, wrote on the subject to Mr Allan Gordon Cameron, of Letterwalton, Ledaig, Argyllshire, a well-known contributor to the "Feld," who is perhaps the best authority in the United Kingdom on red deer. He sent Mr Cameron magazine and newspaper articles and a catalogue of the stags' heads shown in the New Zealand International Exhibition Mr Cameron, in reply, has sent a most interesting communication, which acclimatisation societies and stalkers should find highly instructive.. He says that the information and illustrations were quite a revelation to him, as to the number and quality of the New Zealand red deer, although he had always collected any scraps of information that he could gather about them from English newspapers, and then writes aa follows :— Ed. "W.P."] The North Otago herd appeals to me particularly, first, as Being of genuine Scottish, descent, and second, as occupying a country where, so far as I can gather from the descriptions, combined with a careful study of the map, tho conditions of successful deerstalking are present in the highest degree. It also seems to me that this herd must have a great future before it in the fact of being able to command a practically unlimited outrun to wild and mountainous country. The The Southern Alps of New Zealand promise, in fact to he a new Carpathia.