CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 27 



shoulders, and this was sometimes called the mane 

 of the deer. About and around the short tail (or 

 'single,' as it is technically termed), the colour is 

 light brown, fading into buff between the haunches 

 and over the belly. This buff colour is generally of 

 a lighter shade in the male than in the female deer. 

 The throat of the stag is furnished with coarse hair, 

 which at the end of the autumn increases in growth. 

 and forms a thick ruff during the winter. 



Occasionally, though very rarely in this country, 

 deer have been found of a light cream colour, and 

 nearly white, but these specimens are so unusual that 

 they may be considered as lusus naturae — almost, 

 if not altogether, as apocryphal as the ' hart with 

 golden horns' after which Merlin and his com- 

 panions 



'Rode 

 Through the dim land against a rushing wind, 



And chased the flashes of his golden horns 

 Until they vanished by the fairy well 

 That laughs at iron.' 



The calves, at their birth, and up to the age of 

 three or four months, are spotted with white, like 

 fawns of the fallow or park deer ; the female calf 

 is not spotted so fully as the male. The calves of 

 the Wapiti deer (cervus Canadensis), of which 



