234 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



and in this connection it is interesting to notice 

 that in these forests there are (I believe) no firs 

 or spruces, nearly all the trees being of deciduous 

 kinds such as oak, beech, sycamore, chestnut, 

 hazel, &c. Light - coloured, smooth horns were, 

 I was told, those that had not been shed in the 

 spring. According to the same authority, a stag's 

 head never improved after he was six years old. 

 But the old head under the spotted cap was full 

 of strange ideas. He gravely informed me that 

 old stags like so many other animals in Asia that 

 one would least suspect of carnivorous habits 

 were snake -eaters. His yarn I fear it must be 

 called a "fish story" was that they catch the 

 serpents by the tail, dash them about on their 

 antlers till dead, and then swallow them. Hence 

 it comes, he explained, that the exudation from 

 the lachrymal glands is an antidote to snake 

 poison. It is at any rate administered to newly 

 born infants with this object in "a wine-glass 

 full of water." Another concoction : when the 

 antlers are soft they are boiled down into a jelly 

 and are much appreciated. But these people do 

 not, like the Chinese, use them as a basis for 

 " love philtres." For this purpose they use a 

 different part of the stag's anatomy. 



The shooting of my best stag was unaccom- 

 panied by any very notable circumstances, yet 



