162 RHOOTING. 



deer, that with, dogs, gnus, arrows, darts, in the S]Dace of tw 

 houi's fourscore fat deer were slain." 



We find, also, that at the great hnntitig displays given ia Scot 

 land by the chief nobility during the sixteenth and seventeentl ^ 

 centuries, fire arms were occasionally used to kill the red deerj 

 Historians tell us that these hunting exploits were conducted 

 upon a most gigantic scale of magnificence, and were attended by 

 many thousands of the clansmen, who surrounded great tracts of 

 country, and drove the game to where their respective chiefs 

 were located. In an entertainment of this kind given by the 

 Earl of Athol to James V., the Queen, his mother, the Pope's 

 ambassador, and many hundreds of the most distinguished ladies 

 and gentlemen of the court, there was a kind of palace constructed, 

 made of green timber, interclosed with boughs, moated all round, 

 and provided with turrets, portcullis, and drawbridges. The hunt- 

 ing contmued three days ; and we are expressly told that many of 

 the animals were shot with the gun through the apertures of the 

 rough bmlding, and that even some of the ladies were bold enough 

 to fire off _ some of those field pieces, which were then of a rude 

 construction and considerable size. 



The stag or hart, whose female is called the hind, and the young 

 a calf, differs in size and horns from a fallow deer. He is much 

 larger, and his horns round, whereas, in the fallow species, they 

 are" broad and palmated. By these the animal's age is ascertained. 

 During the first year the stag has no horns, but a horny_ excres- 

 cence, which is short and rough, and covered with a thin hairy 

 skin, the next year the horns are single and straight, in the third 

 they have two antlers, three the fourth, four the fifth, and five the 

 sixth year ; but this number is not always certain, for sometimes 

 they are more, and often less. After the sixth year the antlers do 

 not always increase, and although in number they may amount to 

 six or seven on each side, yet the animal's age is then estimated 

 rather from the size of the antlers and the thickness of the branch 

 which sustains them, than from their variety. These horns, large 

 as they seem, are, notwithstanding, shed every year, and new ones 

 assume then- place. The old horns are of a fii-m soHd texture, 

 and are extensively employed in making handles for knives and 

 other instruments ; but, wliile young, nothing can be more soft or 

 tender,_ and the animal, as if conscious of his own imbecility at 

 those times, instantly upon shedding his former horns, retii*es from 

 the rest of his species, and hides himself in sohtudes and thickets, 

 never venturing out to pasture except by night. Durmg this 

 time, which most usually happens in the spring, the new horns 

 are very tender, and have a quick sensibility of any external 

 impression. "When the old horn has fallen off, the new one does 

 not begin to appear immediately, but the bones of the skidl are 

 seen covered only with a transparent periosteum or skin, which 

 covers the bones of all animals. After a short time, however, 

 the skin begins to swell, and to form a sort of tumour, which 



