300 BRITISH MAMMALS 



The male roe deer drop their horns towards the end of 

 December, and by the end of February the new antlers are nearly 

 perfect. Roe are monogamous, unlike so many other deer. The 

 bucks begin to seek the does soon after the fawns are born in 

 June. In July the male presses his attentions closely on the 

 female, and at this time they are especially eager at their racing 

 rings. With the roe, as with several other deer and antelopes, 

 there is a practice of resorting to certain fixed places — open glades 

 generally — where they race round and round in a circle until 

 regular tracks are made, sometimes in loops, sometimes in other 

 circular shapes. Their resort to these rings during the breeding 

 season is constant. The female will allow herself to be pursued 

 by the male sometimes till both are exhausted for want of breath. 

 It is not until the beginning of August, as a rule (in Scotland), 

 that the rut, or actual breeding season, commences, though this 

 may be as early as July in Dorsetshire. Does that have not been 

 fecundated sometimes invite once more the attentions of the male 

 in October. But the remarkable and apparently now well-estab- 

 lished feature in the breeding habits of the roe is this, that 

 assuming the female to have become pregnant in August, the 

 embryo remains dormant and of minute size until the end of 

 December, when its development proceeds at a normal rate, and 

 the fawn is born in England during the month of May, in Scotland 

 early in June. This is as yet an unexplained phenomenon, but 

 it seems to be one that is well established by the researches of 

 Professor Bishop and Dr. E. Ziegler, the German embryologist. 

 The explanation possibly may be that the roe originated (as did 

 most of the deer) in Eastern Asia, where its nearest relation, 

 Hydropotes^ still lives ; and that in a semi-tropical climate there 

 was no risk in producing young early in February ; but that 

 when the force of circumstances and competition with other 

 forms pushed the roe into the northern regions of the Old 

 World, and into a Glacial age in full swing, this deer may 

 have gradually acquired a power of retarding the development 

 of the foetus until it could be produced at the beginning of 

 the summer. 



