42 DAYS OF DEER-STALKING. 



inch under the skin, which still retained the mark of an 

 old-standing perforation. The horns were by no means 

 remarkable in point of size ; but that on the left, being the 

 side on which the deer was wounded, was ill-shaped, and 

 defective. 



The belief in the extraordinary longevity of the red deer 

 is not peculiar to the Highlands. I have been informed by 

 a gentleman, who has frequently attended the Duke of 

 Sage Coburg's deer-hunts, that he has very lately seen in 

 the mountains of Thuringia a stag of stupendous height 

 and dimensions, whose great age is quite a tradition, 

 having been handed down from father to son in the village 

 from a very remote and untraceable period of time, though 

 he still appears in full vigour ; he has long enjoyed an 

 indemnity, the duke having restricted every one from firing 

 at him. The woods are of oak ; and the acorns no doubt 

 are one great cause of the large growth of the German deer. 



William Twici, or Twety, grand huntsman to King 

 Edward the Second, in his Treatise upon Hunting, men- 

 tions, amongst other beasts of the chase of the first class, 

 the buck, the doe, the bear, the rein-deer, the elk, and the 

 spytard ; which latter, he himself informs us, is a hart of 

 one hundred years old : these he calls beasts of sweet flight. 



On the other hand, "Aristotle, drawing an argument 

 from the increment and gestation of deer (I quote from Sir 

 Thomas Browne), comes to the conclusion, that they are, 

 not such as afford an argument of long life : and these 

 (saith Scaliger, his translator) are good mediums, con- 

 junctively taken, that is, not one without the other : for 

 of animals, viviparous, such as live long, go long with 

 young, and attain but slowly to their maturity and stature : 

 so the horse, that liveth above thirty, arriveth at his stature 

 in about six years, and remaineth above ten months in the 

 womb ; so the camel, that liveth unto fifty, goeth with 

 young no less than ten months, and ceaseth not to grow 

 before seven ; and so the elephant, that liveth an hundred, 

 beareth its young above a year, and arriveth unto perfection 

 at twenty. On the contrary, the sheep and goat, which 

 live but eight or ten years, go but five months, and attain 

 to their perfection at two years : and the like proportion is 



