Chap. 50.] STAGS. 301 



are unarmed. Still, however, they envy us the good that these 

 might do us ; for it is said the right horn, which possesses, as it 

 were, certain medicinal properties, can never be found, a circum- 

 stance the more astonishing, from the fact that they change their 

 horns every year, even when kept in parks ; 50 it is generally 

 thought that they bury their horns in the ground. The odour 

 of either h orn, when burnt, drives away serpents and detects 

 epilepsy. They also bear the marks of their age on the horns, 

 every year, up to the sixth, 51 a fresh antler being added ; after 

 which period the horns are renewed in the same state, so that 

 by means of them their age cannot be ascertained. Their old 

 age, however, is indicated by their teeth, for then they have 

 only a few, or none at all ; and we then no longer perceive, at 

 the base of their horns, antlers projecting from the front of the 

 forehead, as is usually the case with the animal when young. 



When this animal is castrated it does not shed its horns, nor 

 are they reproduced. When the horns begin to be reproduced, 

 two projections are to be seen, much resembling, at first, dry 

 skin ; they grow with tender shoots, having upon them a soft 

 down like that on the head of a reed. So long as they are 

 without horns, they go to feed during the night. As the 

 horns grow, they harden by the heat of the sun, and the 

 animal, from time to time, tries their strength upon the trees ; 

 when satisfied with their strength, it leaves its retreat. 



Stags, too, have been occasionally caught with ivy green 

 and growing on their horns, 52 the plant having taken root 

 on them, as it would on any piece of wood, while the animal 

 was rubbing them against the trees. The stag is sometimes 

 found white, as is said to have been the case with the hind 

 of Q. Sertorius, which he persuaded the nations of Spain to 

 look upon as having the gift of prophecy. 53 The stag, too, 



50 Aristotle, ubi supra, JElian, ubi svpra, and B. iii. c. 17, and Theo- 

 phrastus, in a fragment on the Envious among Animals, agree in stating 

 that one of the horns of the stag is never found, although they differ re- 

 specting the individual horn, whether the right one or the left. Aristotle 

 says that it is the left, while Theophrastus and ^Elian agree with the state- 

 ment of Pliny. B. 



61 Cuvier says, that no antlers are added after the eighth year. B. 



52 This, as well as most of the statements respecting the growth of the 

 horns, is mentioned by Aristotle, ubi supra, hut it is quite unfounded. B. 



33 This story of the white hind of Sertorius, is given in detail hy Aulus 

 Gellius, B. xv. c. 22, who tells us that it was given to him by a native of 

 Lusitania, upon which Sertorius pretended that it had been sent from 



