NATURAL HISTORY. 207 



The stag passes his whole life in the alternatives of 

 plenitude and want, of corpulence and leanness, of 

 health and sickness, without having his constitution 

 much affected by the violence of the change. Nor is 

 he shorter lived than other animals, which are not sub- 

 ject to such vicissitudes. As he is five or six years in 

 growing, so he generally lives, thirty-five or forty 

 years. What has been reported, therefore, concerning 

 the prodigious longevity of the stag, is without any 

 good foundation, though supported by the story of 

 one which was taken by Charles VI. in the forest of 

 Senlis, with a collar round its neck, whereon was in- 

 scribed, " Csesar hoc me donavit." People choose ra- 

 ther to believe that this animal had lived a thousand 

 years, and had received this collar from a Roman Em- 

 peror, than to conclude that he might come from Ger- 

 many, where the Emperors have always assumed the 

 title of Ctesar. 



The horns of the stag continue to increase in bulk 

 and height from the second year to the eighth : they 

 remain beautiful, and much the same, during their 

 rigour of life ; but as their body declines with age, so 

 do their horns. 



It is but seldom that our stags have more than 

 twenty or twenty-two antlers, even when their head 

 is in its most beautiful state. And, as the size of the 

 stag's head depends on the quantity of his food, so the 

 quality of his horns depends on the quality of it. In 

 fertile countries the quality of the horn is, like the 

 wood of the forest, large, soft, and light ; and on 

 the contrary, short, hard, and heavy, in such as are 

 barren. 



The most common colour of the stag is yellow, 

 though there are many found of a brown, and many 



