10 DEGENERACY OF HIGHLAND DEER. 



rutting season in the autumn, exposed to constant anxiety 

 and irritation, and engaged in continual combats, he feels 

 all the rigours of winter approaching before he has time to 

 recruit his strength : the snow storm comes on, and the 

 bitter blast drives him from the mountains. Subdued by 

 hunger, he wanders to the solitary sheelings of the shep- 

 herds ; and will sometimes follow them through the snow 

 with irresolute steps, as they are carrying the provender to 

 the sheep. He falls, perhaps, into moss pits and mountain 

 tarns, whilst in quest of decayed water plants, where he 

 perishes prematurely from utter inability to extricate 

 himself. Many, again, who escape starvation, feed too 

 greedily on coarse herbage at the first approach of open 

 weather, which produces a murrain amongst them, not 

 unlike the rot in sheep, of which they frequently die. 

 Thus, natural causes, inseparable from the condition of 

 deer in a northern climate, and on a churlish soil un- 

 sheltered by woods, conspire to reduce these animals to so 

 feeble a state, that the short summer which follows is 

 wholly insufficient to bring them to the size they are 

 capable of attaining under better pasture and manage- 

 ment. 



If we look at the difference in size and weight of two 

 three-year-old beasts, the one belonging to a good, and the 

 other to a bad farmer, we shall find that difference to 

 amount to nearly double. The first animal is well fed for 

 the sake of the calf, both in winter and summer ; and the 

 last, from insufficient keep, loses in winter what it has 

 gained in summer, and requires double the food in the 

 succeeding season to restore it to what it was at the com- 

 mencement of winter. Thus it is with the deer. 



