THE RED-DEER GROUP 



933 



as some naturalists have imagined. . . . This is a very wild and picturesque 

 season. The harts are heard roaring all over the forest, and are engaged in savage 

 conflicts with each other, which sometimes terminate fatally. When a master hart 

 has collected a number of hinds, another will endeavor to take them from him. 

 They will fight till one of them, feeling himself worsted, will run in circles round the 

 hinds, being unwilling to leave them; the other pursues, and when he touches the 

 fugitive with the points of his horns, the animal thus gored either bounds suddenly 

 to one side, and then turns and faces him, or will dash off to the right or the left, 

 and at once give up the contest. The conflict, however, generally continues for a 

 considerable time, and nothing can be more entertaining than to witness, as I have 

 often done, the varied success and address of the combatants. It is a sort of wild 

 joust, in the presence of the dames who, as of old, bestow their favors on the most 

 valiant. ... In solitary encounters, there being no hinds to take the alarm, 

 the harts are so occupied and possessed with such fury that they may be occasionally 

 approached in a 

 manner that it 

 would be vain to at- 

 tempt at any other 

 time." One in- 

 stance has been re- 

 corded where the 

 antlers of two stags 

 fighting in this 

 manner became so 

 firmly interlocked 

 that the victor was 

 unable to disengage 

 himself from his 

 dead antagonist, 

 and was thus held 

 captive until killed 

 by a forester. After 

 an interval of 

 eight months and a 

 few days from the 

 pairing season 

 that is to say, gen- 

 erally in the early 

 part of June the 

 fawns are produced; 



there being but rarely more than one at a birth. The fawn is dropped in high 

 heather, and is left concealed there during the day by the hind, who returns to 

 visit it in the evening. Mr. Scrope states that the dam makes her offspring ' ' lie 

 down by a pressure of her nose, and it will never stir or lift up its head the whole 

 of the day, unless you come right upon it, as I have often done. It lies like a dog, 



RED DEER AT A POOI,. 



