SAGACITY OF DEER. 23 



but will attack and drive him from their company. In 

 this royal park it is customary for certain men to ride at 

 the herd till they disperse them, and then to single out 

 their victim. Thus the deer, with their natural sagacity, 

 and in a situation sufficiently confined for them to witness 

 what is going on, soon discover the object of the park- 

 keepers. They see the riders and the hounds pressing on 

 the traces of the devoted animal, and that where he runs 

 thither will the enemy follow: thus a sense of self-pre- 

 servation makes the herd turn upon him, and deliver him 

 up to the pursuer. Not so in the wild and rugged regions 

 of the north ; there, man has no means of hot pursuit, for 

 his horse would sink and founder amongst the rocks and 

 morasses. The deer-hound the last resource is unable 

 to separate a dense mass of animals, and single out one 

 from their centre; and thus the herd are unconscious of 

 the particular object of pursuit, and, not being closely 

 pressed upon, have no occasion for any demand upon their 

 sagacity, and do not naturally reject a comrade in distress. 

 There is an opinion amongst many, founded upon tra- 

 dition, that the deer attains to a very extraordinary old age, 

 amounting to some hundreds of years : <l Long a et cervina 

 senectus" saith Juvenal. The ground and authority of 

 this conceit, according to Sir Thomas Browne, " was first 

 hieroglyphical, the Egyptians expressing longevity by this 

 animal ; but they often erected such emblems upon un- 

 certainties, and convincible falsities ; for Aristotle first, and 

 Pliny long after, declared, that the Egyptians could make 

 but weak observations on this matter ; for although it was 

 said that ^Eneas feasted his followers with venison, yet 

 Aristotle affirms that neither deer nor boar were to be 



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