328 



CASSELL'S POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY. 



leap. In the New Forest there is a celebrated spot called the " Deer's Leap," where a stag was once 

 shot, and, in the agony of death, collecting his strength, gave a bound which astonished all who saw it. 

 It is commemorated by two posts, fixed at the extremities of the leap ; the space between them is 

 something more than eighteen yards ! 



A touching picture is thus conveyed of the sufferings of the chased stag, by the first Lord to the 

 banished Duke, as he alludes to "the melancholy Jftques : " 



' To-day, my Lord of Amiens and myself 

 Did steal behind him, as be lay along 

 Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out 

 Upon the brook that brawls along this wood ; 

 To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, 

 That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt, 

 Did come to languish ; and indeed, my lord, 

 The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans, 



That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat 

 Almost to bursting ; and the big round tears 

 Coursed one another down his innocent nose 

 In piteous chase ; and thus the hairy fool, 

 Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, 

 Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, 

 Augmenting it with tears." 













PYRAMID OF .STAGS' IIUU.NS. 



A pyramid, consisting entirely of the horns of stags, as shown in the engraving, is found on a 

 prairie, at or near the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in America. So great is its 

 antiquity, that it has given the name to the surrounding district of the " Stags' Prairie." The white 

 people have, as yet, scarcely penetrated so far into the interior of the country. No towns or settle- 

 ments exist here, and only a solitary traveller now and then crosses the desert. Occasionally, however, 

 an adventurous New England trapper, or an Englishman of similar spirit, gazes on this singular 

 monument. Of its origin nothing is known, except that it is Indian ; and it is said that the hunters 

 among them hold it in superstitious veneration, and are in the habit of adding to its dimensions by the 

 occasional gift of a horn or two. It is so compactly constructed that it is difficult ~to extract a single 

 s]><-< sincii without disarranging the entire mass. 



