248 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF T H E W ORLD 



into position when the first few hinds moved past a hundred yards below us. They were very 

 uneasy and highly suspicious, but fortunately did not stop; and in another moment, to my joy, 

 the big stag came slowly behind them, and offered a fair broadside in the \m spot where I 

 should have wished him to stand. The bullet took him through the rihs. certainly a trifle too 

 far hack, hut he gave in at once, and rolled 150 yards down the hill, fortunately without hurt- 

 ing his horns. A really tine Highland stag in his prime; weight, (6 stone _• lbs., with a good 

 wild head of ten points, and good cups on the to])." 



"Thursday, October 5//;. — We negotiated the stiff climb, and McLeish, leaving me behind 

 a rock on the summit, returned some distance to signal directions to the pony-man. lie came 

 hack just as the stag returned roaring down the pass he had ascended ; and as the mist was 

 blotting out the landscape, 1 feared he would come right on to us without being seen, hut. as 

 luck would have it. he stopped and recommenced bellowing within seventy yards. 1 never 

 heard a stag make such a row, hut nothing of him could we see. It was most exciting, lying 

 flat on a slab of rock, hoping devoutly that the mist would rise, if only for a few seconds. 

 The tension had grown extreme, when there was a momentary lift in the gloom, and I made 

 out the dim forms of the deer just as a big hind, which 1 had not noticed, 'bruached' loudl) 

 within twenty yards of us. The outline of the stag was barely visible when, after carefully 

 aiming, I pressed the trigger, knowing that a moment later there would he no second chance. 

 At the shot the deer at once disappeared, but I felt sure I had hit him, and, on following the 

 tracks for some fifty yards, there he lay as dead as a door-nail. Weight. 13 stone 6 lbs.; a 

 wild head of ten points; thin, and evidently that of a deer on the decline." 



In England the wild red deer are hunted with stag-hounds on Exmoor, and first-rate sporl 

 is obtained on the great moorlands of Somerset and Devon. During the last fifty years the 

 deer have much increased in numb rs, and no less than three packs — the Devon and Somer- 

 set, Sir John Heathcoat-Amory's, and Mr. Peter Ormrod'i — are now engaged in hunting them. 

 In the five years ending in 1892, 276 deer were killed by 1 1 1 Devon and Somerset hound-. 



Wild deer are much given to fighting during the mating season. This is evidenced by the 

 number of pairs of dead deer formerly found with their antlers tightly interlocked. ! 

 ever, deer often make playful tests of strength by pushing each other with their antler-, and 

 in this way also such casualties may have occurred. 



The young of the red deer are in Europe usually dropped in June. The fawn is dexterously 

 concealed by the hind amid the heather, and is left in concealment during the day. Scrope, 

 a great authority on these animals, states that the hind induces her fawn to lie down by 

 pressure of the nose: "It will never stir or lift up its head the whole of the day, unless you 

 ciime right upon it, as 1 have often done; it lies like a dog, with its nose to its tail. The 

 hind, however, although she often separates herself from the young fawn, dots mil lose sigh) of 

 it- welfare, but remains at a distance to windward, and goes to its succour in case of an attack 

 of the wild cat or fox, or any other powerful vermin." 



On the Continent far liner examnles of red deer are to be found than in the British I |i 

 and the antlers and records of weights preserved at the Castle of Moritzburg in Saxony, and 

 elsewhere, show that two hundred vears ago the stags of Germany were far superior even to 

 those of the present daw which are much heavier and afford liner trophic- than do the 

 Highland red deer. Even in Gcrmanv. however, marked deterioration has taken place during 

 the last two centuries. A stag, for example, killed by the Elector of Saxony in [646 weighed 

 not less than fit stone ir lbs.; while from the Elector's records between [611 and [656 it 

 appears that 59 stags exceeded 56 Stone. 651 exceeded 48 -tone. 2,679 exceeded J.0 -tone. 



and 4,139 exceeded 32 stone. These figures are given by Mr. W. V Baillie-Grohman, a 

 distinguished -port-man, in a very interesting chapter contributed to the "i'.iy Came Shooting" 

 volumes of the Badminton Library. 



'Ibis deterioration among the red deer of the forests of Central and Northern Europe is. 

 however, not traceable among the red deer of the wild mountainous regions of Austria-Hungary 



