THE BUCK. 471 



The buck is usually about three feet in height to the top 

 of the shoulder, and its full length is about five, including the 

 tail, which measures nearly seven inches and a half. The horns 

 are shed every spring. The summer- coat is of a fawn-colour 

 spotted with white ; but the white spots disappear with the 

 annual shedding of its coat in autumn ; and the winter- coat is 

 blackish brown 5 the buttocks are always white, bordered on 

 either side with a black stripe, and the tail is black above and 

 white underneath. 



The fallow-deer appears to eat of the same food as the stag, 

 but perhaps of a greater variety. Fawns will crop the green 

 ivy, and the older ones will eat the leaves of holly in winter. 

 From the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII., it appears that 

 the royal fallow-deer, then kept in Greenwich Park, were fed on 

 hay and oats. Those that are now kept there are very fond of 

 biscuits, apples, and filberts. They crunch the nuts, and swallow 

 shells and all. 



In the pairing season and in winter, the bucks and does keep 

 together promiscuously, and those of Scotland in the former 

 season retire to the fastnesses of the glens, where their cry, 

 called braying or belling, is heard more frequently. 



" The wild buck bells from ferny brake." 



(Scott's Marmion, Canto IV. Stanza 15.) 



At other seasons, the sexes live in separate herds. The doe 

 goes with young eight months, and produces one or two, and 

 sometimes, but rarely, three at a birth. She is very affectionate 

 towards her offspring, and, like the hind, conceals it at first. 

 Mr. Jesse relates that a game-keeper having shot a. fawn, the 

 little creature bounded off till the loss of blood so weakened it, 

 that the keeper's hound soon overtook it, and dragged it to the 

 ground. The parent-doe, emboldened by affection, had kept 

 in close pursuit of the dog, and having now come up with it, 

 attacked it with the utmost ferocity, despite the interference 

 of the keeper. The man terminated the sufferings of the young 

 one with his knife, and carried it away 5 and when the mother 

 as if agitated by excessive grief, had surveyed the pool of blood 



