344 THE ROF. 



great share of their original timidity: but however 

 tame they may have been rendered, they cannot 

 be trusted. The males., particularly, are subject to 

 dangerous caprices ; and if they take an aversion 

 to any persons, they will often suddenly spring 

 upon, and attack them with their horns ; the blows 

 from which are sometimes so severe as to throw a 

 tolerably strong man to the ground. 



In their wild state, the Roes generally love to 

 range among the hills and in alpine valleys, near 

 the borders of woods, into which they can fly for 

 shelter and security whenever they are pursued by 

 their foes. They do not, like the Red and Fallow- 

 Deer, herd together in vast numbers; and are 

 seldom to be found but in small flocks or families, 

 consisting of the two parents and their offspring, 

 or, in the whole, of only from three to five indi- 

 viduals. They seldom or never allow strangers to 

 intermix or associate with them. During the sum- 

 mer months they feed chiefly on grass, but they 

 are likewise very fond of the stone bramble* ; and 

 in winter, when the ground is covered with snow, 

 they browse on the tender branches of the fir and 

 birch trees. When, in the spring of the year, they 

 feegin to eat the buds and young leaves of trees, it 

 is said that this food ferments in their stomach, and 



* Rubus saxatilis of Linnaeus^ 



intoxicates 



