230 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



Deer fight with their horns and occasionally with 

 their feet, and nothing in the whole field of animal 

 belligerency could seem fiercer or more determined 

 than their combats. But even in their fiercest 

 enounters there is a good deal of make-believe. 

 They try to terrify one another like those soldiers 

 of France who practised the art of looking fierce 

 in their drill -yards. Their challenge is loud and 

 long, and when they come to close quarters the 

 clash and clang of their antlers is awesome to 

 listen to. But in the great majority of cases the 

 fight consists in nothing more than the dashing 

 of one bony mass against another with prodigious 

 noise. Cases are known in which the antlers of 

 the fighters have become interlocked, with fatal 

 results for both ; and cases are far from un- 

 common in which one of the fighters receives 

 wounds from which he dies. But usually weight 

 carries the day, and the battle ends without either 

 of the combatants breaking the other's skin. The 

 defeated stag has simply been overawed by 

 resounding clash, and there is at least one case on 

 record of a hornless stag forming a harem and 

 keeping all rivals at bay. This would suggest 

 that deer can fight successfully without horns, and 

 that horns are menacers in the main. 



A not uncommon sight in the Highlands 

 during late October or early November disposes 

 those who witness it to look upon the stag, while 

 not disputing his real courage in the lists of love, 

 as a great posturer. Trampers in the hills occa- 

 sionally come upon patches where over a space 

 of several square yards the heather, and even the 



