THE STAG IN THE RUTTING SEASON. 37 



and seeming to defy him to combat. Nor does the 

 challenge remain unanswered: with his brow-antlers 

 lowered like a lance in the rest, he rushes on the foe, 

 and lucky is the intruder if he can ward the thrust ; 

 for should it penetrate his ribs or shoulders he would 

 most surely pay for his temerity with his life*. 



When once the stag has joined the hinds he does 

 not quit them. He walks continually round and round 

 the herd, keeping them together and preventing even 

 a single one from leaving him. A stag will some- 

 times have twelve, fifteen, twenty, or even more hinds 

 with him, and proudly but despotically he moves 

 among them, like a sultan in his serail. His blood is 

 boiling in his full veins; his passion consumes him, 

 and he flies to the pool, not to assuage his thirst, but 

 to cool the fire that is burning within him. He rolls 

 in the shallow water and lays himself in the slimy bed ; 

 and when he rises reeking from the mire, his back and 

 sides and throat are covered with it, and the long hair 

 of his neck is matted together like a thick and tangled 

 mane. He eats little or nothing now. Ever and anon 

 he stands still, and by a low, deep, hollow sound, 



* It is not more than three weeks since the day on which I write 

 this (December 5th), that a young stag, one of six only, rushed 

 upon another, and striking his brow-antlers into his side killed him 

 on the spot. It was a strange occurrence, on account of its being 

 late in the season ; had it been a month earlier there would have 

 been nothing surprising in it. During the rutting season however 

 the weaker stags are kept away from the herd by the stronger ones ; 

 and when these go, the younger ones then take their place, and are 

 in their turn as fierce and as jealous of an intruder as their more 

 potent rivals were before them. 



