196 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



young, but as summer days lengthen and ferns begin to open into 

 glossy fronds, it may be readily torn if caught in a thorn branch 

 or stout oak twig. From such mishaps the stag suffers much 

 pain, and occasionally the perfect growth of brow, bay and tray is 

 marred thereby. All this time stags, as if conscious that they 

 have neither weapons for defence nor full majesty wherewith to 

 impress the opposite sex with a sense of their power, keep 

 away from the company of hinds, hiding in thickets by day and 

 feeding alone at night. When the bracken has lost all traces of 

 down, and its stalks, hard and polished, are turning a tawny tint, 

 the stag's antlers, hardened into bone, begin to burst their 

 "velvet." It maybe seen then hanging in mossy shreds from 

 every tine. To get rid of this disfigurement the stag uses what 

 is known as a " fraying stock." It may be the trunk of a gnarled 

 oak, from which a stag will strip the tough rind as he rubs his 

 antlers against it and tramples the ground round and round ; or it 

 may be a sapling, which he will twist into all manner of strange 

 shapes in his endeavour to free himself of the velvet and point the 

 tines for combat. Now, as July draws to a close, is the season for 

 fraying, and one may at times hear the antlered monarchs at work 

 in the deepest recesses of a leafy valley with sounds such as 

 single-stick players make when their feet beat time to the tapping 

 of tough ash wands, and the swift play has made them scant of 

 breath. At night the deer wander out to feed in cornfields or 

 among turnips, or to strip apples from orchards. This is the 

 harbourer's opportunity for learning all about their habits, which 

 may serve him in slotting them to their lairs when the hunting 

 days come round. Without a skilled harbourer, who can tell 

 almost to a yard where the heavy harts are lying when wanted, 



