CHAPTER III. 



OF THE stag's HEAD. 



Then here's to him who leads the hunt 



With Tally Ho ! Away ! 

 And brow, bay, and tray, my lads, 



Brow, bay, and traj-. — \\'hyte Melville. 



The most remarkable thing about a stag — that 

 which makes him '* The stateHest beast in his gate 

 that doth go upon the earth" — in his "head" — to 

 use the correct expression, his antlers, in common 

 parlance. The term " horns " is wholly inapplicable 

 to the head of a deer, but has been in common use 

 from very ancient days, as witness the old rhyme : 



If thou be hurt with horn of stag 

 'Twill bring thee to thy bier. 



Horn is a mass of fibre compacted together with 

 glutinous matter, and is hollow, with a core of 

 sensitive bone duly supplied with nerves and blood 

 vessels, whether the horn grows from the head, as 

 in a cow, or from the foot, as in the hoof of a horse. 

 Horn is not shed annually ; it is worn away and 

 replaced by growth. 



The antlers of a deer are shed every year, and are 

 an almost solid mass of bony deposit without nerves 



