THE RED DEER 347 



now known as a ' Spayad/ The next year the beam throws 

 out an extra front branch called the ' tres ' tine ; and in the 

 fourth year the 'bez' tine appears just above the brow tine, 

 and at the same time the top of the main beam bifurcates 

 into the ' sur-royals.' The four-year-old male is called a 

 'Staggard.' In succeeding years the whole antler of the 

 'Stag' is not only larger, but the sur-royals increase, 

 breaking out in a series of snags forming something like a 

 cup, until is reached the full adult, a ' Royal Hart/ with 

 antlers three feet long, weighing as much as seventy pounds, 

 and possessing from a dozen to forty 'points (Plate XXXVI.) 



In Scotland a stag with the latter number would be 

 accounted a specially fine animal, but in Central Europe 

 are found magnificent harts with as many as sixty-six points, 

 and quite doubling in weight the twenty to thirty stone of 

 the finest Scotch stags, such as are found in the woodlands 

 of Perthshire. The great animals of Southern Germany 

 and Austria belong to the estates of the monarchs and 

 rich feudal lords, and the Deer raid the growing crops of 

 the agriculturist with more freedom than would be per- 

 mitted in Britain, and are thus fed up into splendid 

 specimens of their tribe. 



Phosphate of lime is the chief ingredient in the Deer's 

 antler. Just as with our domestic poultry it is necessary for 

 them to eat in some form the lime which strengthens the 

 shell of the egg, so the Deer, if it be meant to produce a 

 good pair of antlers, must have access to some source 

 whence lime can be obtained. If hens cannot obtain the 

 necessary mineral substance they will eat even their own 

 eggs, and so, after the antlers have been shed, the male Deer 

 commences to eat them. That a Deer with its little mouth, 

 feeble jaws, graminivorous teeth, and ruminating stomach, 

 should attempt to eat shed bone, which would try even the 

 jaws and teeth of a hyaena, seems sufficiently absurd. But, 

 nevertheless, the Deer does contrive, by patient gnawing, to 

 assimilate every particle of a shed antler, in the absence of 

 which it will take to a bone, and treat it in the same way. 

 Thus we can account for the fact that, even in districts 

 where the Deer tribe abound, it is seldom the case that a 

 stray antler can be found after the lapse of a few weeks. 



