32 THE BRITISH MAMMALS : THEIR GENERA AND SPECIES. 



youngster being always spotted with white. The harts live apart from 

 their families except during the breeding season, keeping to the 

 higher ground either alone or in small parties. When they are with 

 the herds the hinds lead the way and act as sentinels, their vigi- 

 lance in protecting their young making them naturally more on the 

 alert. The herd travels in single file ; the flight is always against 

 the wind ; and when matters become desperate it is the master hart 

 that turns to face the danger and give the others a chance of escape. 

 The food consists mainly of herbage and leaves, but includes nuts 

 and fungi and even seaweed. Nowadays Red Deer are practically 

 restricted to the Scottish highlands, but many are kept in private 

 parks. They still run wild on Exmoor and in the Westmoreland 

 hills, and there are a few in the Killarney district in Ireland. At 

 one time they were wild in Epping Forest, but those there now 

 were turned in from Windsor, whither the survivors of the old 

 stock had been removed, so that they may be some of their des 

 cendants. 



The Fallow Deer is either fallow that is faded yellow brown, 

 marked with white spots and lines, or it is dark brown, the dark 

 brown being, it is said, the old Romano-British race, while the 

 other is of more recent importation for park purposes. Dark or 

 light, there is always a whitish area on the buttocks edged with 

 black, and a blackish line down the back continued to the tip of the 

 tail, the tail being not rudimentary as in the Red Deer, but reaching 

 nearly halfway to the hock. The spotted variety is by far the more 

 numerous, and is larger and has more snags on the antlers. The 

 antlers are large, rounded at the base, and broaden into wide pal- 

 mations. As a rule they have no bez-tine ; the brow-tine is well 

 developed, and, like the trez-tine, is not forked. The antler rises in 

 an unbroken curve from the trez tine, and from the pointed summit 

 sweeps downward and backward, forming a broad curved blade 

 with deep indentations along the edge, the points of which, known 

 as snags, are many, the lowest standing so boldly out from the rest 

 as to be sometimes called the third-tine. Thus this deer has both a 

 trez-tine and a third-tine, the first pointing forwards, the other 

 pointing backwards a little distance above it. The antlers begin to 

 show in the second year as a simple spike ; in the third year the 

 brow and trez tines are developed, and the palmation begins ; in 

 the fourth year the hinder edge is serrated ; in the fifth year the 

 serrations deepen, and the palmation assumes its characteristic 

 form ; and in the sixth year the serrations become so deep as to give 

 the projections the form of snags or short points. The does are 

 smaller than the bucks, and have no antlers ; they begin to breed 

 when two years old, and have one fawn at a time, though cases of 

 twins are on record. In the winter the brown variety becomes 

 greyer, but the spotted variety becomes darker, and the white mark- 

 ings become more or less obscure. There are few wild herds of this 

 deer in England beyond those in the New Forest and Epping Fore .t, 

 but it is the ordinary deer of our parks, and as such is fairly 

 common and familiar. Its true home is in the countries bordering 

 the Mediterranean, 



