THE STAG, OR BED DEETJ. 



become by degrees obliterated. The antler dies in consequence, and, although it continues to adhere 

 to the skull, it is only as a foreign body, and it is not long destined to remain thus attached ; for the 

 absorbent vessels are now actively employed in scooping out a groove of separation between the living 

 and the decayed substance, at the place where the base of the antler is contiguous to the frontal bone. 

 As soon as this has proceeded to a sufficient depth, the adhesion ceases, and the slightest concussion 

 occasions the fall of the whole structure. After the separation of the antler, the eminence of the 

 frontal bone on which it stood is left rough and uneven, like that of a fractured part ; but the sur- 

 rounding integuments soon close over, and cover it completely, until the period arrives when it is to 

 be replaced by a new antler, which exhibits the same succession of phenomena in its growth and decay 

 as its predecessor, only that its development is usually carried further, the new stem being both thicker 

 and longer, and the branches wider, and more numerous. The antler of each successive year has, 

 consequently, a different form from that of the preceding ; and when the animal has attained a certain 

 age, the extremities of the branches present broad expansions of bone, which the antlers of an early 

 growth had never exhibited. 



Stag-hunting has been a favourite pastime from very remote periods. In Britain, large tracts of 

 laud yvere set apart for making forests, as a shelter to these animals ; even villages and sacred edifices 

 were destroyed, and their site changed into a wide waste. In the reigns of William Rufus and 

 Henry I., it was considered more criminal to kill a beast of chase than a human being. In after 

 times, while immense tracts yet lay wild and unbroken by the plough, deer abounded in much greater 

 numbers than at present, protected, too, by the severest laws. The stealer of deer and the outlaw were 

 then convertible terms ; and the ballads of our rude forefathers celebrate the deeds of men who, in 

 defiance of the edicts of absolute monarchs, " bent their bows, and lived upon the chase." The names 

 of Clym of the Clough, William of Cloudesley, and especially of Robin Hood, interwoven in the 

 fabric of these sopgs, are well known. " Chevy Chase " is one of our legends of deadly feud. The 

 stag-hounds that formerly roused the deer on the moors of the west of England are at present 

 dispersed. Few, or none, are to be seen in the New Forest, nor in Woolmer Forest, in Hampshire, 

 where they were once numerous ; nor do any now remain in Epping Forest. Of stag-hunting, how- 

 ever, we occasionally hear in England. 



But in the central part of the Grampians there are still large herds of red deer. They frequent 

 the southern part of the bleak, and, generally speaking, naked ridge of Miniguy, which lies between 

 the Glen of Athol on the south, and Badenach on the north, and between the lofty summits of Ben-y- 

 Glae on the east, and the Pass of Dalnarardoch on the west. The greater part of this ridge is the 

 property of the Duke of Athol ; though many deer are found on the lands which belonged to the late 

 Duke of Gordon, and others, towards the east. 



The deer are seldom on the summits, but generally in the glens, of the Tilt and Bruar. They 

 are often seen in herds of upwards of a thousand ; and when, in a track where there is no human 

 abode for twenty or thirty miles, a long line of bucks appear on a height, with their branching horns 

 relieved against a clear mountain sky, the sight is very imposing. The forest of Athol, consisting of a 

 hundred thousand acres, is devoted to red-deer ; they exist in Mar Forest, and Glenarty, and in the 

 western districts of Ross and Sutherland. 



Nothing can exceed the vividness of the following picture from the pencil of Scott : 



A moment listened to the cry. 

 That thickened as the chase drew nigh ; 

 Then, as the headmost foes appeared, 

 With one brave bound the copse he cleared ; 

 And stretching forward free and far, 

 Sought the wild heaths of Uam Var." 



" The antlered monarch of the waste 

 Sprang from his heathery couch in haste ; 

 But, ere his fleet career he took, 

 The dew-drops from his flanks he shook; 

 Like crested leader, proud and high, 

 Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky, 

 A moment gazed adown the dale, 

 A moment snuffed the tainted gale; 



Of the prodigious strength of the stag when chased, the instances are numerous. One of these 

 animals, which had afforded the late Lord Derby's hounds a very fine run, leaped a boarded gate into 

 a gentleman's grounds, with a spiked roller on the top of it, the height of the gate and roller being 

 eight feet four inches. The feat was the more remarkable, as the deer was apparently run down at 

 the time, witli hounds snatching at his haunches, as he came down the road from whence he took the 



