White Fallow deer
written and illustrated by Michael Baxter Brown
(This article was first published in Deer, the Journal of the British Deer Society, April 2003)
E
and 1974 a decision seems to have been taken to keep the
park at its 1949 size and to maintain only a small herd of
white Fallow deer; a local archivist notes, in 1974, that “white
pigeons, white poultry and white deer” were kept in its
bounds. It is not a particularly old park; Evelyn Shirley
(1867) makes no mention of it, and it does not appear as a
park on the 1874 OS map.
Although the bucks do not sport much in the way of
head gear the herd is healthy and well cared for and the
park, on the west slope of a hill, looks to be well managed.
Fenced on three side and walled on the fourth, it is divided
into two more or less equal sections by fencing, the deer
being moved from one section to the other from time to
time, thus permitting pasture maintenance to be carried out.
ARLIER this year my wife and I attended a well-supported open meeting at which one of the speakers referred to
the inhabitants of a local deer park as ‘Chinese’ deer. I
pricked up my ears. The only deer now occupying this privately owned park is a herd of white Fallow deer. So where
is the ‘Chinese’ connection? Hingston (1988) provides a clue
in his description of the herd: “the all-white Chinese Fallow
are of an exquisite delicacy”. Modern Fallow deer originated
from around the Mediterranean and have not been widely
introduced to Asia so the ‘Chinese connection’ could be a
case of mistaken identity or even the product of a lively
imagination. The closest I have been able to get is a
Japanese link for there was at one time also a herd of
Japanese Sika in the park.
According to Whitehead (1950) Red deer were introduced into the park about 1875 but were destroyed in 1892
for reasons not explained. Perhaps to make way for the Sika?
Sika were first introduced into English deer parks in the last
few decades of the 19th century and so it may have been
that the Red deer were sacrificed to make room for this new
species, which at that time would still have had some rarity
value and would thus have evoked curiosity? It is recorded
that the last two Sika, both hinds, of a herd which numbered
80 at its peak, died in 1939 and at that time there were 300
Fallow (50 bucks and 250 does) in the park.
By 1949 the herd had been reduced to 22-24 does and
two bucks, described as “a mixture of white, black, sandy
and dappled” (Whitehead, 1950). The park had by then
shrunk to about 40 acres, the remainder having been put
under the plough during the War. Some time between 1949
White Fallow deer
It is the case that, of all deer species, Fallow show by far the
greatest variation in coat colour. The reasons are genetic.
Smith (1980) proposed that white is a triple homozygous
recessive genotype but this is refuted by Bignell (1993) who
believes that white is controlled by a single recessive gene.
It follows that white deer can be produced by parents of any
two of the other colours (black, common or menil) and
white parents will always produce white fawns. But genetics
is a complex science well beyond my ken so I shall go no further than to quote Norma Chapman’s excellent explanation:
“Similar [colour] variations are familiar in many domestic
animals from pet mice to cats and cattle; they are associated with domestication and inbreeding, which favour and
perpetuate mutations.” (Chapman & Chapman, 1975).
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Deer, Vol. 12, No. 7
Fallow deer have indeed a long history of close association
with man; it has been suggested that the Phoenicians, seafaring traders and artisans, who were all powerful in the
eastern Mediterranean prior to the Greeks, may have kept
Fallow deer in semi-domestication although the animals
involved need not necessarily have been Dama dama. They
may also have been responsible for the trade in live Fallow,
a trade possibly continued by the Greeks and Romans.
Although there could have been earlier imports it is likely
that Fallow deer were introduced -- or perhaps re-introduced -- to England by the Normans for stocking their parks
and the royal forests.
The attributes of Fallow are many: semi-domesticated
animals, used to being handled and transported by sea,
hardy and relatively disease free, requiring little attention in
comparison to most other domesticated stock with a nutritious meat and with the added advantage of being suitable
for hunting. It is no surprise that with these attributes the
number of deer parks in England rapidly increased from the
35 recorded in the Domesday Book to a peak of at least
1,900 in the mid 13th century. Other factors were also at
work. The growth of the medieval deer park coincided with
the expansion of the royal forests and the rigorous enforcement of Forest Law. It was a device whereby the nobility, the
Church and the wealthy landowner could own their own
hunting ground, stocked with deer and thus a source of
venison, without circumventing Forest Law.
The impression is often given that the royal forests and
parks of medieval England were maintained as hunting
reserves for royalty, the aristocracy, the Church and the
wealthy, an impression stoked by folklore and legend. But
this is only part of the story -- they were also utilitarian, a
source of timber and wood, of venison, of grazing domestic
stock and even as tax raising devices. There are many
records of large numbers of deer, mainly Fallow, being killed
in forest and park for the provision of venison. Whether or
not the colour of the Fallow deer so utilised was of any consequence is not clear.
The Black Death (1348) marked the slow decline of the
medieval deer park and by the late Middle Ages a new concept in parks was emerging, although hunting and what was
basically deer farming did not end with their demise. This
new generation of parkland was often directly associated
with a major residence, amenity parkland of more formal
design featuring tree-lined avenues, artificial mounds and
so on. A prime example is Henry V111’s Hampton Court
Palace where the palace, the gardens and the two deer
parks (Home and Bushy) were conceived as a whole, all
contained within perimeter walls. I have not come across
any ancient records of the coat colour of the Fallow deer in
these parks; today both herds are of mixed colour, white
deer being more numerous in Home Park.
Early in the 16th century there is record of white deer in
Stirling (royal park) and in 1507 Sir John Wemyss sent to
James IV “thre quyt deir to put in the park” as well as a roe
buck, one hart and four roe deer. (Cummings, 1988).
Cummings goes on to comment that “white deer were no
doubt welcome as a decorative feature, perhaps reinforced
by an awareness of the white hart in literature. The source
of Sir John’s deer is not clear but the wording of the phrase
(from the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland)
suggests that they may have been Fallow. The parks at
Stirling were first enclosed in the mid 12th century (old
park) and the late 13th century (new park) but by the 15th
century both had fallen into disrepair; the old park was
renewed at the beginning of the 16th century and stocked
with both Red and Fallow deer, which is interesting because
it was believed by some in the 16th and 17th centuries that
the two species should not be mixed (Gilbert, 1979).
James 1 (1603-25) is credited with introducing black
coloured Fallow deer into Scotland from Norway, on the
grounds that the strain was hardier than others, but dark
coloured deer may already have been present in at least
one English park (Windsor) as early as 1465. The same
monarch reputedly sent ‘pied’ or spotted deer, presumably
menil Fallow, to the king of France in 1608 by which time it
is evident that colour variation was a factor.
White Fallow deer do not figure prominently in early
park records and Shirley mentions them only in passing.
Whitehead (1950) suggests that some owners of park herds
indulged in cross-breeding of various colours in order to try
and create a new colour. Winnans (1913) hints that all-spotted herds were favoured by some by advising owners to
shoot out any black deer in their herds to encourage the
ascendancy of the all-spotted (menil) variety and believed
that the introduction of a white buck into a herd promoted
lightness of coat and spotting. Whatever was the case it
seems that there was never more than a handful of all-white
herds and today there are only three or four in the UK; in
the wild Fallow are mainly of mixed colour, although the
herd adjacent to Dunkeld in Perthshire is predominantly
black.
Poachers consider that wild white Fallow are manna
from heaven, referring to them as Judas deer because
they stand out so well thus giving way the position of the
herd.
A mixed colour herd of Fallow - mainly does
and fawns, in Richmond Park, Surrey
November 2002
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Deer, Vol. 12, No. 7
Note the off-white colour
of the bucks on the right
February 2003
All-white herds -- where are they?
The largest herd of all-white Fallow deer in the UK is at
Houghton Hall, Kings Lynn, Norfolk. The establishment of
an all-white herd here is, however, a comparatively recent
development and Whitehead (1950) describes the herd as
being “of the normal spotted type with a few white deer”.
Another park with an all-white Fallow herd is Bramshill
in north Hampshire. An ancient park, it was without deer
from around the 17th century until it was restocked with
Red deer stags from Windsor Great Park and hinds from
Savernake in 1938. There was also an import of a white
Red stag and six white hinds from the white Red deer herd
at Langley Park, Buckinghamshire and a white Fallow buck
from Wonersh Park, Surrey, the other Fallow coming from
Savernake Forest. A suggestion here that the then owner
may have been intent upon breeding all-white Red and
Fallow deer -- the Red deer have now gone but a small
herd of all-white Fallow remain. Hingston (1988) tells us
that there is an all-white Fallow herd -- “one only two allwhite herds in England” -- at Aqualate Park, Staffordshire
but he does not include Bramshill in his survey. Mallow
Castle Park in Co. Cork, Ireland which reputedly dates
from the reign of Elizabeth 1, carries a small herd of Fallow
and Whitehead (1950) reports that around half of the herd
were then white. The all-white Fallow herd at Parkanaur
Forest Park in Co Tyrone is directly descended from the
Mallow Castle herd.
In Illinous, USA, on a 3,700 acre site around Argonne
National Laboratory estate White-tail deer live alongside a
herd of wild white Fallow deer. In northern California at
the Ridgewood Ranch in Mendocino County another herd
of all-white Fallow deer, first introduced in 1949, survives
although the size of this population has fluctuated from
time to time (Connolly, 1981). On the other side of continent, in Georgia, is Rock City Garden, a theme park based
on the massive rock formations of Lookout Mountain,
fairy tales and the like. Among the attractions is a deer
park, home to a herd of all-white Fallow, said to be
descendants of animals introduced from Europe in the
1930s.
At the Hopland Field Station, University of California, a
small herd of Fallow was established from a white Fallow
doe and a black buck in the mid 1960s. Although the herd
is no more, the University having terminated many of its
wildlife research activities in 1975, of the 20 births recorded in the herd between 1965-75, 12 fawns were black and
eight were white, most females being black and males
white. In 1968 a set of twins was produced, both male, one
was black and the other white. At three years old the
white buck was reported to be dominant over his black
sibling (Connolly, 1981).
Deer, Vol. 12, No. 7
Legend
legend has it that a Buddhist monk or Shinto prophet rode
into the city of Nara, Japan, in 768AD on a white stag. As a
result the Honda Sika still enjoy the freedom of the city,
although you may have difficulty in locating a white animal
amongst them. Light coloured and white animals have, however, been recorded from time to time. (Banwell, 1996). In
western mythology white stags feature in the anecdotes of
Pling, Aristotle and Pausarius as well as in English, Scottish
and Irish mythology and folklore. White hinds also come into
the story, notably in Celtic folklore. The references to ‘stags’
and ‘hinds’ suggest a link with the genus Cervus but other
species are also represented -- the Roman statesman and military commander Quinton Sertorius was reputedly accompanied everywhere by a white ‘fawn’.
In native American mythology white animals e.g. white
deer and buffalo were considered sacred and the Reindeer is
another animal around which has grown much legend.
Interestingly Whitehead (1993) tells us that the colour of the
European Reindeer “varies considerably among the cows
and those animals with a tame admixture” and that their
colour ranges from a dark grey/brown to a completely white
animal.
Finally in China the white stag represents Shou-hsien, god
of immortality. Allowing for ‘artistic licence’ (Dama for
Cervus) isn’t this where we came in?
Acknowledgement
I wish to thank Norma Chapman for kindly agreed to read
draft of this article. She made a number of useful suggestions,
most of which have been incorporated into the final version.
References
BANWELL, D. BRUCE. 1996. The Sikas of Japan. Deer 10, 38
CONNOLLY, GUY E. 1981. Fallow Deer in Mendocino County,
California. Deer 5, 175
CHAPMAN & CHAPMAN. 1975. Fallow Deer. Terence Dalton Ltd.
CUMMINGS, J. 1988. The Hound and the Hawk. Weidenfeld and
Nicolson.
GILBERT, M. J. 1979. Hunting and Hunting Reserves in Medieval
Scotland. John Donald Publishers Ltd
HINGSTON, F. 1988. Deer Parks & Deer of Great Britain. Sporting &
Leisure Press
WHITEHEAD, KENNETH G 1950. Deer and Their Management.
Country Life Ltd
WHITEHEAD, KENNETH G.1993. The Whitehead Encyclopedia of
Deer. Swan Hill Press
SHIRLEY, E. P. 1867. Some Account of English Deer Parks. John
Murray.
SMITH, R. H. 1980. The genetics of Fallow Deer and Their
Implications for Management. Deer 5, 79-83
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