DEER FORESEE STORMS. 29 



better attested in proportion as they are marvellous,) I 

 judge it incumbent on me to say, that the accounts I have 

 received from park-keepers in England, where there are 

 red deer, entirely contradict their supposed longevity. 



The longest-lived deer they remember in Richmond 

 Park was the Naphill stag, turned out there by command 

 of his Majesty George the Third. Every care was taken 

 of him, but he lived no longer than twenty years ; and the 

 present keeper, who communicated this information to me, 

 asserted, at the same time, that the red deer in that park 

 rarely exceed the age of eighteen years, and that their 

 horns decrease in size after the age of twelve. The largest 

 antlers he has met with there, with the skull part attached, 

 weigh about twelve pounds. I consider this authority, 

 however, good only as far as it goes, and not as determin- 

 ing the longevity of deer in a wilder state, and under more 

 general circumstances. 



The deer, like many other animals, seem to foresee every 

 change of weather : at the approach of a storm they leave 

 the higher hills, and descend to the low grounds, sometimes 

 even two days before the change takes place. Again at 

 the approach of a thaw, they leave the low grounds and go 

 to the mountains by a similar anticipation of change. They 

 never perish in snow-drifts, like sheep, since they do not 

 shelter themselves in hollows, but keep the bare ground, 

 and eat the tops of the heather. 



One would imagine that in a severe storm many would 

 perish by avalanches. But, during the long period of sixty 

 years, Mr. John Crerar remembers but two accidents of 

 this nature. These were in Glen Mark : eleven were 

 killed by one fall, and twenty-one by another: the snow 



