98 SPORT IN NORWAY. 
quietly amongst the cattle. Should the musquitoes 
prove very troublesome the does. betake themselves 
again to the regions of snow; but the old bucks, whose 
hides are not usually of such a delicate texture, find the 
sweet grass in the lowlands too attractive to be re- 
linquished for the sake of a few troublesome gnats, and 
get uncommonly plump and fat. If the summer is an 
uncommonly rainy one, as has been the case for the 
last three years, the numerous fungi which the moisture 
draws forth seduces them into the Scotch and spruce fir 
forests, where they grow in abundance. 
They begin to shed their coats about the latter part 
of July, previously to which they are of a greyish-white 
colour ; whilst the operation is going on, dappled; and 
afterwards a dark greyish-brown. 
A full-grown buck measures about six to seven feet 
in length, and about four feet in height. A very large 
buck might, perhaps, reach four feet six inches. The 
head is rather elongated, the nozzle thick, the eyes 
large and prominent (expressively beautiful, I always 
think), the ears about six inches in length, and oval. 
There are two beautiful specimens in the Zoological 
Museum at the University of Christiania. One of 
these, which is a very fine one, was shot by a friend of 
mine on the fjelds, a few miles south of Elstad station 
in Gudbrandsdal. It was the year of the coronation; . 
and consequently the station-masters were often put 
