8 Deer Breeding for Fine Heads 



If a stag has been wounded or injured the horn on the opposite 

 side often shows a malformation or diminution in size of beam. 



Any additional points that may be developed in a horn occur 

 at the top of the beam, either in the form of a fork or a cup (as 

 a group of three or more points is called). 



Sometimes one of the points of the cup may have a fork at the 

 tip, when it is called a double cup. In the wapiti the bay or 

 tray tine sometimes ends in a fork, but I have never seen this 

 in a red deer. 



A stag is popularly supposed to add a pair of points, one on 

 each horn, for each year he lives, but in reality when a stag sheds 

 his horns he generally increases the number of points by several extra 

 ones on each horn, if he has good feeding ; and a royal or twelve- 

 pointer head may be obtained before the stag is three years old. 



The first head, that is to say, the two-year-old head, has generally 

 one long beam without points, but I have sometimes seen, at any 

 rate in the wapiti, a beam with a fork to each tip, and I possess 

 a head with a fork on one horn and a " trident " on the other 

 a "trident" indicating the type in which the three points are in 

 one plane parallel to the spine of the animal. 



The three-year-old head shows brow-points, and occasionally 

 tray-points as well, but in one case in my park it is a twelve- 

 pointer. 



A bay-point is not, as might be supposed, the one which, with 

 the brow-point, makes up a six-pointer ; for a six-pointer has only 

 a brow and a tray point, and the bay comes in between these when 

 there is a fork with three or more points on the beam (the end of 

 the beam, of course, counting as a point when there is no fork in 



