THE RED DEER. 13 



am inclined to think that present-day naturalists 

 are insufficiently generous in estimating the length 

 of life of this animal. It is usually held that a stag 

 begins to decline after its fourteenth year, and so 

 far as its antlers are concerned this is undoubtedly 

 so. Deer kept in captivity are seldom known to 

 live so long as thirty years, and as a general rule 

 they become so far advanced in senile decay as to 

 play little or no part in the social intercourse of 

 their kind long before this age is reached. Yet 

 an old stag may live a more or less solitary life 

 for many years ere finally it vanishes. 



A great deal, however, must depend upon the 

 conditions under which the animal lives, and taking 

 the normal conditions of the normal hart of the 

 Scottish mountains, there is certainly very little 

 that would seem conducive to great longevity. A 

 seventeen or eighteen stone stag may not turn the 

 scale at eleven stone by the end of the rutting 

 season, and in this weakened and susceptible con- 

 dition the first savage onslaught of the upland 

 winter finds him. Unable to stand the conditions 

 of the greater altitudes, he seeks the sheltered 

 corries, or may even wander down to the compara- 

 tively moderate climate of the forests at river-level. 

 Weeks of scanty fare, of miserable chill and cold- 

 driving mists, fall upon him at a time when he is 

 all too poorly fitted to meet such conditions, and, 

 unless artificially fed, he may sink into a pitiable 

 state of weakness. Stags have been known to 

 fall in the act of crossing comparatively shallow 

 torrents, and, too feeble to rise, to perish miser- 

 ably within a few feet of solid ground. They have 

 also been known to become too feeble to shake 

 the snow from their coats, and, the first layer 

 freezing solid, another rapidly collects, and yet 



