40 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



and this time too the stems are thicker than before, 

 and on each is one point more than the preceding 

 year. When we think of the comparatively slow rate 

 at which a hothouse plant, with all possible care and 

 forcing, expands in growth, or a child or other young 

 animal increases in stature, we can hardly comprehend 

 the productive power that, in so short a time, should 

 be able to force into existence an excrescence of such 

 size and weight, demanding too for its nourishment 

 the noblest juices the sap and very marrow of the 

 body. Yet so it is. From the stag's head, " shorn of his 

 beam," the young shoot springs up, and like a sapling 

 buds and puts forth a branch, and then another and 

 another. Upwards still it rises ; and the thick stem 

 divides on high into more taper branchings, forming 

 as they cluster together a rude mural crown. At the 

 extremities all is soft and tender, porous, and with 

 much blood. Over the whole, to preserve it from injury 

 until it has grown firm and hard, is a thick velvet 

 covering; and not until all beneath can bear expo- 

 sure to the air does this fall off. When first got rid 

 of, the antlers are as white as ivory, but they soon 

 acquire their usual darker hue. 



It is now summer, and the stag revels in abundance. 

 He roams through the woods and enjoys the glorious 

 time in quiet luxury. But as was said before, this is 

 of short duration : the Feast of St. Egidius is at hand, 

 and his life of slothful ease is at an end. 



