THE RED DEER. 15 



stag may be at their zenith of development in his 

 sixteenth or seventeenth year, and thereafter the 

 rate of decline may be very much slower than 

 is the case with the mountain-stag. Naturally, 

 therefore, one concludes that the animal living the 

 life of shelter and plenty far outlives his kinsman 

 who has chosen the bleak and hungry heights as 

 a habitat. 



A mountain-stag exceeding twenty stone in 

 weight is considered a good one, and it is notice- 

 able that the heaviest stags killed are invariably 

 those which have chosen their home-range with 

 a view to shelter and plenty. Thus a woodland 

 stag killed at Atholl scaled thirty stone six pounds, 

 and another outlying stag killed on the same 

 estate tipped the beam at thirty-four stone much 

 higher weights than are to be found in the deer 

 forest * of Atholl. 



A horse lives thirty years, but does not reach 

 maturity till six years of age. How are we to 

 judge the age at which a deer reaches maturity ? 

 Very young stags endeavour to consort with the 

 hinds; but mild flirtations of this kind occur in 

 animal life of every kind, and are certainly no 

 indication of complete maturity. Probably a stag 

 is not fully matured till his third year, which would 

 argue that his allotted span of life is considerably 

 shorter than that of the horse. Gestation in the 

 case of the horse lasts ten months, in the case of 

 the deer eight months ; and, moreover, horses suffer 

 none of the fluctuations peculiar to deer, so that 

 all presumption is in the direction of the horse out- 

 living the deer. The camel outlives the horse by 

 at least twenty years; its period of gestation is 



* It should be noted that a Scottish deer forest is not usually wooded 

 but is merely a large, almost barren tract 



