DEER. 



rivaled nature. The. deer, inoffensive and peaceable, 

 elegant and active, cannot, be viewed without plea- 

 sure, and the branching antlers of the stag, apparently 

 calculated for ornament rather than for either aggres- 

 sion or defence, render him, if not one of the most 

 useful quadrupeds, at least one of the most superb 

 and beautiful forms of the animal creation. These 

 horns of the stag are the index of his age : the first 

 year exhibits only a short protuberance ; the second 

 yeajr the horns are straight and single ; the third pro- 

 duces two antlers ; the fourth three, and the fifth four. 

 After the stag has attained his sixth year, the number 

 of his antlers being sometimes six and sometimes 

 seven, cannot be considered as an exact criterion. In 

 the beginning of March, the old ones shed their horns, 

 but the young ones not before the middle of May. 

 During this troublesome period, they separate them- 

 selves from the herd, and wander solitary and dispirit- 

 ed over the plains until their antlers arc grown, and 

 have acquired their complete hardness, expansion, 

 and beauty. This operation of Nature is completed 

 about the end of July, when the stags leave their re- 

 treats and return to the herds. 



In England the usual colour of the stag is red, in 

 other countries brown or yellow. His eye is remark- 

 ably beautiful, being at once brilliant and mild, and 

 both his hearing and smelling arc extremely acute. 

 The stag is five years in coining to his perfection, 

 and lives about thirty-five or forty. It is now a ge- 

 nerally received opinion among naturalists, that ani- 

 mals live seven times the number of years required 

 to bring them to perfection ; but ^ hether this opinion 

 be sufficiently confirmed by experience., appears 

 somewhat problematical. 



The hind is the female of the stag ; her head is not 

 adorned with antlers, and she is smaller than the 

 male. The hind goes between eight and nine months 

 with young, and generally brings forth in May or 

 June. She is exceedingly attached to her offspring, 

 and will make the dog, or even the wolf, sometimes 

 give back by her eliortg for its preservation, while 

 F 4 



