CERVUS ELAPHUS. 



grown he is commonly between four and five feet high ; often, 

 when he enjoys abundance of food, and lives undisturbed by 

 man or the beasts of prey, he attains a much larger size. 

 His legs are slender and elegant, tail short, horns lofty and 

 branched. The female is of a smaller and more slender form, 

 and destitute of horns. A reddish-brown color, which has 

 gained this genus the appellation of red deer, distinguishes 

 the upper part of the body ; the hinder part of the neck and 

 the space between the shoulders are marked with a black list; 

 some part of the face is commonly black, the sides and un- 

 der part are white. The stag loses and renews his horns an- 

 nually, and for a while each set of horns is adorned with an 

 additional branch. The young have no horns the first year ; 

 in the second year the horns are single and straight, and till 

 the sixth, the number of the antlers continues to increase. 

 From this period they are multiplied so irregularly, that the 

 animal's age is estimated, not so much by the number of the 

 antlers, as by the size and thickness of the whole horns. 

 The sprouting horns are at first extremely tender, and covered 

 over with bloodvessels. They grow, not, like the horns of the 

 bull, the sheep, or the goat, by shooting out new matter at the 

 roots, and moving forward that which is already formed, but, 

 like trees and other vegetable bodies, increase their length 

 by additions at the points. Delicacy and acuteness of the 

 senses distinguish the stag in an eminent degree : his sense 

 of smell is exquisite, his eye is sparkling, soft, and glowing 

 with expression, he hears distinct and low sounds, and is not 

 incapable of relishing the melody of music. One mode of 

 hunting this animal, practised in ancient Greece, was for two 

 persons to go out together, and one to charm the unsuspect- 

 ing stag with the melody of his voice or his pipe, till the 

 other approached near enough to pierce him with a dart or 

 arrow. These animals run with great swiftness, living gen- 

 erally in forests, upon grass, leaves, and buds. 



The horns of the stag differ from those of most other ani- 

 mals, and approach nearer to the nature of bone, only contain- 

 ing less of the phosphate of Jime in their composition, and 

 yielding a much larger proportion of gelatine. It is for the 

 sake of the gelatine that their shavings are medicinally used. 

 These are often adulterated with shavings of mutton-bones, 

 which, however, are easily detected, by their greater degree 

 of brittleness. 



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