This evening the author of ' Tarka the Otter ' and ' Salar the Salmon ' is to give the first of four broadcast talks on animals, and he will repeat it on Monday afternoon, October 5, at 5 p.m. Tonight's talk on red deer will be followed by a talk on the otter on October 28, and the last two talks will be on the stoat and the badger respectively. Each of the four talks will be repeated for the benefit of a fresh circle of listeners on the following Monday afternoon.
A great number of listeners will have read a story of his, ' The Old Stag '. Stumberleap lived in a wood of that name, and was hunted many times ; in the last chase he swam across the Severn Sea and landed in Wales. Corpses of the hounds, swimming after him, were washed up eventually in Cardiff harbour.
The author in his booklet ' The Wild
Red Deer of Exmoor 'tells how the wild red deer have lived there for many thousands of years. To many farmers they are vermin. ' For'a great many years ', he says, ' the Hunts practically befriended the wild red deer of Exmoor. I, for one, a mere imaginative friend of the deer, shall always be grateful for this practical benevolence '.