HISTORY OF QUADRUPEDS. 139 



The Stag has been said to be an uncommonly 

 long-lived animal; but later observations have fully 

 confuted this unfounded opinion. It is a generally 

 received maxim, that animals live seven times the 

 number of years that bring them to perfection : thus 

 the Stag, being five or six years in arriving at 

 maturity, lives seven times that number, or from 

 thirty-five to forty years. 



The following fact, recorded in history, will serve 

 to show that the Stag is possessed of an extraor- 

 dinary share of courage, when his personal safety is 

 concerned: Some years ago, William, Duke of 

 Cumberland, caused a Tiger and a Stag to be in- 

 closed in the same area; and the Stag made so 

 bold a defence, that the Tiger was at length obliged 

 to give up. 



The hunting of the Stag has been held, in all 

 ages, a diversion of the noblest kind; and former 

 times bear \vitness of the great exploits performed 

 on these occasions. In .our island, large tracts of 

 land were set apart for this purpose; villages and 

 sacred edifices were wantonly thrown down, and 

 converted into one wide waste, that the tyrant of 

 the day might have room to pursue his favourite 

 diversion. In the time of William Rufus and 

 Henry the First, it was less criminal to destroy one 

 of the human species than a beast of chase. Happily 

 for us, these wide extended scenes of desolation and 

 oppression have been gradually contracted; useful 

 arts, agriculture, and commerce, have extensively 

 spread themselves over the naked land; and these 

 superior beasts of the chase have given way to 

 other animals more useful to the community. 



In the present cultivated state of this country, 

 therefore, the Stag is almost unknown in its wild 



