ARTIFICES OF ANIMALS. 



pasture. The regularity with which these combats are con- 

 ducted is singular. They make regular attacks, fight with 

 courage, and never think themselves vanquished by one check ; 

 for the battle is daily renewed, till the weaker are completely 

 defeated, and obliged to remain in the worst pasture. They 

 love elevated and hilly countries. When hunted, they, run 

 not straight out, like the stag, but double, and endeavor to 

 conceal themselves from the dogs by various artifices, and by 

 substituting other animals in their place. When fatigued and 

 heated, however, they take the water, but never attempt to 

 cross such large rivers as the stag. Thus, between the chase 

 of the fallow-deer and of the stag, there is no material dif- 

 ference. Their sagacity and instincts, their shifts and dou- 

 blings, are the same, only they are more frequently practised 

 by the fallow-deer. As he runs not so far before the dogs, 

 and is less enterprising, he has oftener occasion to change, to 

 substitute another in his place, to double, return upon his 

 former tracks, &.C., which renders the hunting of the fallow- 

 deer more subject to inconveniences than that of the stag. 



The roe-deer is inferior to the stag and fallow-deer, both in 

 strength and stature; but he is endowed with more graceful- 

 ness, courage, and vivacity. His eyes are more brilliant and 

 animated. His limbs are more nimble ; his movements are 

 quicker, and he bounds with equal vigor and agility. He is, 

 likewise, more crafty, conceals himself with greater address, 

 and derives superior resources from his instincts. Though 

 he leaves behind him a stronger scent than the stag, which 

 increases the ardor of the dogs, he knows how to evade their 

 pursuit, by the rapidity with which he commences his flight, 

 and by numerous doublings. He delays not his arts of de- 

 fence till his strength begins to fail him ; for he no sooner 

 perceives that the efforts of a rapid flight have been unsuc- 

 cessful, than he repeatedly returns upon his former steps; and 

 after confounding, by these opposite motions, the direction 

 he has taken, after intermixing the present with the past 

 emanations of his body, he, by a great bound, rises from the 

 earth, and, retiring to a side, lies down flat upon his belly. 

 In this immovable situation, he often allows the whole pack 

 of his deceived enemies to pass very near him. The roe-deer 

 differs from the stag in disposition, manners, and in almost 

 every natural habit. Instead of associating in herds, they 

 live in separate families. The two parents and the young go 

 together, and never mingle with strangers. The females com- 

 monly produce two fawns, the one a male and the other a 

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