HABITS OF DEER. 181 



did, Gillespie concealed himself behind a moss-hagg, 

 and as the two rushed by he sprang out, and striking 

 the terrified and exhausted deer on the back of the 

 head with a stout staff he bore in his hand, by one 

 blow felled it to the ground. In a moment his trusty 

 hound had fixed his fangs firmly in the throat of the 

 prostrate animal, and the death-rattle greeted his ears. 

 But now, the deed completed, and the excitement of 

 the moment passed, he was seized with pity and 

 remorse at the thoughtlessness of which he had been 

 guilty in slaying a deer which he did not need, in 

 a place from which he could with difficulty get it 

 removed, and last, and possibly also least, in direct 

 defiance of his duty. The blood of the slaughtered 

 hind seemed to call to him from the ground ; to use his 

 own words, he " was weel nigh greeting as he saw the 

 creature lying dead at his feet," and he vowed that 

 he " wadna touch ane hair o' it." The next time he 

 passed that way, the fox, the gled, and the corbie had 

 made their meals on its flesh, and its bones were 

 bleaching in the sun. 



Here are one or two interesting particulars connected 

 with the habits of deer. First, as regards the dis- 

 appearance of the horns which are yearly shed by the 

 stags. It has been thought extraordinary, that in a 

 district where there are perhaps several thousand deer, 

 and consequently some hundreds of stags, who annually 

 cast off a couple of horns each, not more than a few 

 score of these horns are ever found. Our informant 

 accounts for this fact in the following way. They 

 either bury their horns, or destroy them with their 

 teeth. He says he has himself seen deer, at the 

 period of spring, when they cast their horns, trampling 

 them down in the moist soil of the peat-bogs, which 



