218 COMMON r.iaTisii animals 



Deer are subject to a very tiresome disease, the 

 nature of whicli was only discovered, as recently as 

 1894, by Friedrich Brauer. It is caused by a species 

 of bot-fly [Gephenomyia rufibarbis), a very handsome 

 insect which chooses the respiratory passages of the 

 deer between the nose and throat as a cradle for its 

 young. Alighting on the nostrils of the deer, this 

 bot-fly squirts into them a fluid containing active 

 maggots. They make their way along the passage 

 to the throat, and there attain the length of an inch, 

 causing severe irritation, coughing and sneezing, by 

 which actions they are cast out on the ground, and 

 there rapidly change into pupas ; from these the flies 

 emerge to carry on their life-history at the expense 

 of the deer. 



Red deer are both chased on horse-back Avith 

 hounds, or stalked and shot. One can understand 

 there is true sport both in hunting and stalking 

 the wild deer. Powers of endurance are required, 

 and a knowledge of the ground, and of the 

 natural history of the animal pursued, which in its 

 turn is more familiar with the country than the 

 hunter, and has, moreover, the free use of its limbs ; 

 whereas the practice of running after a deer which 

 has been fed in a stable and carried in a cart to a 

 convenient place for the hunt and then let loose, to 

 be chased over ground to which it is a stranger, 

 seems but an employment for cowards. The least 

 one can say is that many of those who pursue the 

 ^^ carted deer^^ do not pause to think of, or care 

 anything for, the natural history of the animal they 

 cliase. There is the enjoyment of the cross-country 



