128 ANIMAL LIFE OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



condition, and seeks solitude. What becomes of the dropped 

 antlers is somewhat of a mystery, as few of them are found, and 

 these usually odd ones. 



If one were seeking to judge the habits of the Red Deer from 

 a finely stuffed specimen in, say, the Natural History Museum, 

 standing erect with fully developed antlers, one would feel 

 justified in saying, as many have said " This is a creature of 

 the open mountain-side and the moorland, where there are no 

 trees whose branches could entangle these branching horns- 

 No adornment could be better fitted for keeping the noble beast 

 out of the woods." Yet the Deer can actually run through 

 dense woods with ease, and we know from its habitats in other 

 countries where it is still plentiful, that it is a true woodland 

 animal. The explanation is evident if, during a Stag hunt, we 

 see the hunted seek refuge in a wood. The Stag throws his 

 head back so that his antlers lie along each side and protect 

 his body from many a bruise that might otherwise be inflicted 

 by the branches as he rushes through the undergrowth. The 

 antlers may be used with deadly effect in self-defence, and 

 many a hound is killed by a Stag at bay. Their function 

 appears to be mainly protective against carnivorous beasts ; 

 they are seldom if ever effective against those of their own kind. 



The mating of the Red Deer, as we have indicated, takes 

 place in the autumn ; and in the spring the Hinds separate, 

 each retiring to a lonely spot among the bracken where her 

 single calf (rarely two) is born about the end of May. The 

 little deer is already covered with fur, and its back and sides 

 are dappled with white after the manner of the Fallow Deer, 

 though unlike the livery of that species the spotting of the Red 

 Deer is not retained beyond calfhood. The calf is born with 

 some intelligence also. Mr. St. John tells how, one day in the 

 Highlands, he "was watching a Red Deer hind with my glass, 

 whose proceedings I did not understand, till I saw that she was 

 licking a new-born calf. I walked up to the place, and as soon 



