THE EARLIEST PICTURE IN THE WORLD 21 



' rutting season, when stags roar, the stag would be 



; tucked up in the belly and have a tuft of hair hanging 

 under the middle of it. He and the stag in front are 

 moving in the real action (not the conventional action 



; Rosa Bonheur and Landseer drew, but what the ancient 

 Egyptians drew sometimes) of a slow, easy canter. . . . 

 Now as to the middle stag's horns. I should give 

 him, bearing in mind he is the small sentry stag, brow, 

 tray, and three on top a ten-pointer, the thin points 

 showing in the original drawing indicating that he had 

 thin horns in fact, a three-year old. 



" In a Scotch forest a ten-pointer is a comparatively old 

 stag, but at Warnham and my place, where the feeding 



; is good (and in my case there is hand feeding all the 

 year round), a spike stag gets six points and can almost 



; be a royal the next year. 



" All this shows that the deer at the time this drawing 

 was made must have had very good feeding and come 

 to maturity quickly, like modern park deer. The big 

 stag would never have allowed a ten-pointer in his herd 

 if the latter had been an old stag. 



" As to the action of the leading hind. I think she is 

 a hind-calf by her legs, and is jumping with all four 



1 legs together, the way young deer do when playing, and, 



: being young, is paying no attention to the danger 

 behind, but is full of life, like a horse playing about 

 when he is fresh. One often sees the calves of a herd 

 playing like this if the herd is moving along steadily. . . . 

 " From the position of the hind legs of the little calf 

 I judge that she is jumping with all four legs together 

 (the jump from which the expression 'buck jumping' 

 comes) ; her tail would be curled up tight over her back 

 like a pug dog carries it, only without the curl, and her 

 ears pricked forward. The piece of horn broken off 

 would show the rest of the hinds and calves, led 

 by an old ' yeld ' (i.e., barren) hind, who would be lead- 

 ing the herd up wind with her nose and ears forward to 

 ' get the wind ' of any danger ahead. 



" The day is a hot one in the middle of August, shown 

 by the big stag blowing and his being with the hinds, 



