136 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



temperate other species of deer occupied the land, coming 

 possibly from the east and south. Julius Caesar mentions an 

 animal of Gaul under the name of alces (which is kindred 

 to Russian olene, a stag ; German elch, an elk or moose ; 

 French elan, an elk), probably a large stag or red deer. The 

 Dutch colonists in South Africa name the largest of the 

 antelopes eland. 



Our English word wild — or, rather, its original form is 

 in German used to denote game (animals or birds which may 

 be hunted), and occasionally is used in place of our word deer, 

 as roth-ivild, roth-hirsch, the stag or red deer (roth meaning 

 red), roth-huhn (literally, red hen), the red-legged partridge; 

 schwarzes-wild (black game), the wild boar; wild-kalb (literally, 

 wild calf), a fawn or young deer; wild-huhn, a ptarmigan; wild- 

 sprossen, antlers; wild-stand, a covert or game preserve; wild- 

 hirt, a gamekeeper; wild-bann, right of hunting; wild-e, open 

 moorland or uncultivated land, from which we derive English 

 wild-er-ness. Another connection is reh-icild, a deer ; reh- 

 bock, the roebuck ; reh-geiss, the doe or female of the roebuck, 

 The terminal word geiss is a female goat, and geiss-bock is a 

 buck goat, also a roebuck. Beh-fleck is a purple spot ; rth- 

 fleisch, venison ; hirsch-reh, musk deer. In French chevreuil 

 is a roebuck ; chevrette, a roe or doe ; chevre, a female goat. 

 An assumed likeness in this animal to the goat is evident 

 from its naming. Professor Skeat gives roe as a female deer ; 

 mid-English, ro ; Anglo-Saxon, rah ; Icelandic, rd, &c. ; deriva- 

 tive, roe-buck. An allied word is English doe, a female deer, 

 and doe-rabbit, or hare. The German dam-wild and dam- thier 

 look rather naughty words, but they are the neuter form for 

 the fallow deer ; dam-bock and dam-hirsch are the male, and 

 dam-geiss or dam-kuh the female animals. This seems akin 

 to Latin dam-a, a deer ; French daim, a fallow-deer buck, 

 daine, a doe. The English word fallow comes through 

 Anglo-Saxon fealu, fealo, pale-red or yellow in colour. In 

 French fauve is fawn-coloured or tawny : thus, bete-fauve 

 and also fauve is fallow deer, which is equivalent to 

 tawny - coloured beast. The English word deer is con- 

 nected with Anglo - Saxon dear, a wild animal ; Dutch, 

 dier ; Danish, dyr ; Swedish, djur ; Icelandic, d'yr ; Gothic, 

 dius ; German, thier ; Latin, fer-a ; Greek, ther and 

 pher, a wild beast. German thier will not specially refer 

 to wild animals, but rather to any animal, beast, or brute ; 

 in sporting, to doe. The following are examples : Thier- 

 arzt, veterinary surgeon ; ihier-garten, zoological garden, or 

 a park ; thier-kreis, the zodiac (literally, the animal circle) ; 

 thier-kalb, a fawn ; haus-thiere (in the plural), domesticated 

 animals (literally, house-animals, or animals kept in the vici- 

 nity of the house) ; jung-thier, a fawn (literally, young beast). 



