72 CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 



The poetical licence (which is of very ancient 

 date) is certainly justifiable, more especially when 

 applied to the wounded or fatigued stag ; though it 

 is needless to remark that the assertion that the 

 deer shed tears is founded on fiction alone. 



The age to which the deer attains has long been 

 a disputed point, and one which I think is not even 

 now satisfactorily settled. When the mighty men 

 of antiquity differ upon the subject, I may well be 

 allowed to profess ignorance. ' The hartes and 

 hindes may live an hundred yeres according to 

 Phebus' saying. And wee finde in ancient hystori- 

 ographers that an harte was taken having a collar 

 about his neck full three hundred yeres after the 

 death of Ccesar, on which collar Csesar's arms were 

 engraved and a mot written, " Ccesarus me fecit," 

 whereupon the Latin proverb came which saith, 

 " Cervinos annos vivere." '* Aristotle infers from the 

 laws of gestation of animals that a deer (which is 

 eight months in the womb) does not live over thirty 

 years. There is an old Highland adage extant — 

 that a horse lives to thrice the age of a dog ; that 

 thrice the age of a horse is that of a man ; thrice 

 the age of a man that of a deer ; thrice the age of 

 a deer that of an eagle ; thrice the age of an eagle 



* ' Art of Venerie/ p. 124. 



