DEER-STALKING IN THE HIGHLANDS. 171 



lie begins, and continues till one, feeling himself beaten, re- 

 treats : but still unable to make up his mind to retreat with 

 dignity, begins cowering round the hinds, followed by his con- 

 queror, until a touch of the latter's horn sends him at once 

 scampering off, or he bounds aside and recommences the fight. 

 Harts have been known to kiH each other in these encounters. 

 A pair were found in one of the duke of Gordon's deer forests 

 with their horns inextricably locked, one dead and the survivor 

 captive, soon to share the fate of his victim. The horns thus 

 involved are still preserved. This period of excitement lasts 

 only a few days, during which the hart is a dangerous enemy, 

 even to man, if approached too nigh. The alarming attack 

 made on Mr. and Mrs. Maule will be doubtless in the recollec- 

 tion of our readers. While they were crossing a park in their 

 carriage, a stag rushed so furiously on the horses, that one of 

 them died shortly after, and their own lives were put in con- 

 siderable jeopardy. About this time the coat of the hart be- 

 comes of a lighter cast, his neck swells, and his body is di*awn 

 up like a greyhound's. The repeated conflicts and continual 

 anxieties of the rutting season leave him very weak. His 

 flesh is now rank and unfit for food. The hind drops but one 

 fawn at a time, generally in the high heather, where she makes 

 it lie down by pressing it with her nose. She then leaves it 

 until night, but does not go so far from it as to endanger its 

 safety. Keeping to windward, she is soon aware of the ap- 

 proach of the wild cat or any noxious vermin. It is said that 

 if you take up a young fawn that has never followed its mother, 

 rub its back and put your fingers in its mouth and it will fol- 

 low you. The females are easilv domesticated ; not so the 

 males. 



Harts shed their horns annually, a truly wonderful circum- 

 stance if we consider that the horn is an actual continuation 

 of the bone of the table of the skull, as the velvet or skin is of 

 the integuments of the head ! Nor is the rapidity with which 

 this firm mass of bone is secreted less worthy of our admira- 

 tion. After the old horns are shed, the new appear in ten 

 days, and attain their full growth (immense as that often is,) 



