DEER 



47 



2. The Red Deer (Cervus elaphus). This deer is a native of our islands, and 

 is found on Exmoor, in the Highlands of Scotland, the wilder parts of Ireland, 

 and the Hebrides. A full-grown stag (the male) is at least 4 feet at the antlers, 

 the hind only slightly smaller. Its winter colour is brown, tinged with grey, with 

 a certain amount of black, a stripe down the back, and on the tips and edges 

 of the ears. On the rump is a well-defined patch of dingy yellow, roughly shaped 

 like a heart, and turning gradually to white near the tail. The summer coat 

 is, as the name implies, a rich red, with touches of bronze-gold in specimens 

 in first-class health and condition. The hair on the under side of the neck 

 is so thick as to become a real mane. In common with most deer, there is 

 a gland marked by a tuft on the outer side of the hind-leg below the hock, 

 and a face gland or " tear pit." 



The story of the deer's horns is one of the most remarkable in Nature. 



Roe Deer. 



They are shed every year, until the stag is fourteen years old, and grow again 

 in increased weight and size. A full-grown horn weighs about 24 lb., and 

 this is made in ten or twelve weeks. When the animal has cast its antlers 

 it frequently eats them, or at any rate gnaws them. The new antlers are at 

 first covered with a soft, downy skin, very tender and sensitive, filled with 

 blood-vessels ; but as soon as the antlers have reached their full size the 

 blood-vessels dry up, and the " velvet," as the skin is called, is rubbed off 

 against trees, rocks, or other hard obstacles. 



The horns have three (roughly horizontal) prongs or tines the one next 

 to the head called the brow or frontal tine, and the others the bez and trez 

 tines old Norman-French terms (meaning " twice " and " thrice "), dating 

 from the Conquest. Above the third tine, the " trunk " of the antler broadens 



