DEER KIND. 305 



in fertile pastures and undisturbed by the hunter, 

 and one, often pursued and ill nourished. The 

 former has his head expanded, his antlers numer- 

 ous, and the branches thick ; the latter has but 

 few antlers, the traces of the blood-vessels upon 

 them are but slight, and the expansion but little. 

 The beauty and size of their horns, therefore, 

 mark their strength and their vigour; such of 

 them as are sickly, or have been wounded, never 

 shooting out that magnificent profusion so much 

 admired in this animal. Thus the horns may, in 

 every respect, be resembled to a vegetable sub- 

 stance, grafted upon the head of an animal. Like 

 a vegetable they grow from the extremities ; like 

 a vegetable they are for a while covered with a 

 bark that nourishes them ; like a vegetable they 

 have their annual production and decay ; and a 

 strong imagination might suppose that the leafy 

 productions on which the animal feeds, go once 

 more to vegetate in his horns.* 



The stag is usually a twelvemonth old before 

 the horns begin to appear, and then a single 

 branch is all that is seen for the year ensuing. 

 About the beginning of spring, all of this kind 

 are seen to shed their horns, which fall off of 

 themselves ; though sometimes the animal assists 

 the efforts of nature, by rubbing them against a 

 tree. It seldom happens that the branches on 

 both sides fall off at the same time, there often 

 being two or three days between the dropping of 

 the one and the other. The old stags usually 



* M. Buffon has supposed something like this. Vide passim. 

 VOL. II. U 



