AUGUST. 



THE HABITS OF THE WILD 

 RED DEER. 



Bv H. H. S. PEARSE. 



WHEN the wide tracts of ridge and combe bordering Exmoor 

 Forest are brightest with the glorious hues of purple heather and 

 golden gorse ; when every frond of brake-fern is unfolded, rising 

 in hardened stalk high enough to shelter all but the branching 

 antlers of a lordly stag, the natives of that sporting county care to 

 talk of nothing but wild Red Deer and their ways. Between 

 bracken and deer there is closer association than any but keen 

 observers of nature know. In the early days of winter, when the 

 ferns are brown and easily broken because the sap is all out of 

 them, stags retire to woodland recesses and shed their antlers 

 among the fallen leaves. When tiny green volutes begin to shoot 

 up again in spring-time, new antlers are sprouting on the heads of 

 male deer. So long as bracken bears on fronds and stalks a 

 downy coat, the stag's antlers are in " velvet," and sensitive to 

 every touch. A russet covering, like dry moss on an apple tree, 

 encases the branching growth of nerves and blood vessels, to 

 protect them from the flies that swarm in deer coverts, and from 

 being hurt by trailing brambles. This " velvet " is toughest when 



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