CHAPTER IX. 

 THE 



" Unharbour'd now, the royal stag 1 forsakes 

 His wonted lair ; he shakes his dappled sides, 

 And tosses high his beamy head the copse 

 Beneath his antlers bends." SOMERVILLE. 



WE now turn our attention to a race of animals, which seem 

 designed by the Creator to embellish the forest and animate the 

 solitude of uncultivated nature. The deer, inoffensive and peace- 

 able, elegant and active, cannot be viewed without pleasure; and 

 the branching antlers of the Stag, apparently calculated for or- 

 nament, rather than for either aggression or defence, render him, 

 if not one of the most useful quadrupeds, at least one of the 

 most superb and beautiful forms of the animal creation. These 

 horns of the stag, are the index of his age : the first year ex- 

 hibits only a short protuberance ; the second year, the horns are 

 straight and single ; the third, produces two antlers ; the fourth, 

 three, and the fifth, four. After the stag has attained his sixth 

 year, the number of his antlers being sometimes six, and some- 

 times seven, cannot be considered as an exact criterion. In the 

 beginning of March, the old ones shed their horns, but the young 

 ones not before the middle of May. During this troublesome 

 period, thy separate themselves from the herd, and wander soli- 

 tary and dispirited over the plains, until their antlers are grown, 

 and have acquired their complete hardness, expansion, and beauty. 

 This operation of Nature is completed about the end of July, 

 when the stags leave their retreats, and return to the herds. 



In England, the usual colour of the stag is red, in other coun- 

 tries, brown or yellow. His eye is remarkably beautiful, being 

 at once brilliant and mildj and both his hearing 1 and smelling are 

 extremely acute. The stag is five years in coming to his perfec- 

 tion, and lives about thirty-five or forty years. It is now a gene- 

 rally received opinion among naturalists, that animals live seven 

 times the number of years required to bring them to perfection ; 

 but whether this opinion be sufficiently confirmed by experience, 

 appears somewhat problematical. 



The hind is the female of the stag : her head is not adorned 

 with antlers, and she is smaller than the male. The hind goes 

 between eight and nine months with young, arid generally brings 

 forth in May or June. She is exceedingly attached to her off- 

 spring, and will make the dog, or even the wolf, sometimes give 

 back, by her efforts for its preservation, while the stng is so 

 unnatural as to be one of its most dangerous enemies ; and he 



E2 



