HIPPOPOTAMUSES, PIGS, AND DEER 337 



the meat in sandwiches, certainly not rejecting ham, this perhaps 

 on account of its saltness. Of salt they are very fond, and will 

 travel far in some districts in search of salt " licks." For this 

 reason they visit the sea-coast (where they are undisturbed), and 

 lick the brine off the rocks that have been swept by the tide. 

 There are certain sages and grasses of the moorland kinds 

 which they affect, no doubt for the same reason, because salt 

 would be obtained from the potash of these grasses, as it is 

 from similar forms in Africa, which are also much appreciated 

 by antelopes. 



On the whole, forests are necessary to the well-being of the 

 red deer, and their advance in England and the rest of Europe 

 must have depended on the retreat of the Glacial conditions and 

 the revival of trees. Perhaps this arises from the fact that, when 

 in an absolutely wild state, they would find little or no sustenance 

 in the winter season except in the woodland, where they would 

 have a certain amount of evergreen foliage, bark, twigs, dry 

 leaves, seeds, and fruit to fall back on. In summer-time they 

 generally feed at night, in the morning, and in the late afternoon, 

 resting a good deal in shelter during the heat of the day. In 

 winter they feed at intervals all day and all night ; spend their 

 time, in fact, hunting for food, unless artificially fed in parks. 



They are not known to suffer from many diseases, but every 

 now and then an epidemic of some kind, akin, no doubt, to 

 diseases affecting cattle and sheep, may sweep through the herds, 

 decimating, or even exterminating them, unless human inter- 

 vention checks the spread of the malady. It is known that they 

 are liable to hydrophobia. When this disease has been intro- 

 duced amongst them by a stag or a hind having been bitten by 

 a rabid dog, it is spread among the deer themselves by those far 

 gone in hydrophobia taking to nibbling at the skin of the healthy 

 deer, which they do until there is a slight abrasion, as though 

 impelled by some perverted instinct to spread the disease. No 

 recent cases have been reported of hydrophobia amongst deer, 

 and this, no doubt, is due to the complete extermination of the 

 disease amongst all animals since greater care was taken by the 



