OF THE STAG AND HIS NATURE. 25 



Deer have been occasionally recorded with patches 

 of white about them, and, indeed, tradition points to 

 there having been harts in England, as there are a 

 few still in Germany, wholly white. The White Hart 

 is a common sign for an inn, and hart is the ancient 

 and proper term for the full-grown male of the red 

 deer, not the fallow. Our ancestors in days gone 

 by were extremely punctilious in the correct use of 

 terms of venery. White fallow deer are quite 

 common, but in spite of the fact that the signboard 

 artist almost invariably draws a fallow buck, there 

 must have been, it would seem, some traditional 

 existence of a white hart. That he was then, as 

 now, a lusus natures is probably to be inferred from 

 the fact that he usually wears a collar and chain. 



The teeth of all deer are like those of sheep — that^ 

 is to say, they have two cutting teeth in the lower 

 jaw as yearlings, four as two-year-olds, and so on till 

 they get a full mouth of eight teeth at four years 

 old ; stags at five years old develop two tushes in 

 the upper jaw. The upper jaw has no cutting teeth. 



The red deer is properly described as hart or 

 stag, hind, and calf, while the terms buck, doe, and 

 fawn are confined to fallow deer. 



The term hart is not used in the West. 



