RED DEER. 



357 



preserved in various collections, especially in Germany. 

 In Lord Powerscourt's collection is a very fine pair of 

 antlers, believed to have belonged to a Stag killed in 

 Transylvania about two hundred years ago, which weigh 

 seventy-four pounds, and have forty-five points. This, 

 however, is surpassed by some in the German Castles, one 

 especially at the Moritzburg, in Saxony, boasts sixty-six 

 tines. These collections are also rich in " abnormitaten," 

 or deformed antlers, often of most strange and fantastic 

 growth, whose variations are to be attributed to various 

 causes, but especially to breeding in-and-in, and injuries 

 to the organs of the Deer during the production of 

 the antlers. Such deformed heads, called in Gaelic 

 " chromeh," are particularly common in some of the Scotch 

 Islands, especially in Mull. 



The average weight of good Stags in Scotland may be 

 taken as ranging from fifteen to twenty imperial stone, 

 but much heavier animals are sometimes killed. Mr. 

 Scrope mentions several which have exceeded thirty stone, 

 and considered that the Sutherlandshire Deer offer the 

 highest average weight. An outlying Stag killed at 

 Woburn, in 1836, weighed thirty-four stone live weight. 



