282 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



Freaks are more common than evenly balanced 

 well grown heads, an even head of three atop 

 each side being only secured once or twice in 

 a season, and the extra growth of a well 

 favoured stag's horns seems more generally to 

 run into odd points and widenings than to go 

 to hll out the beam and strengthen the rights 

 or antlers in svmmetrical fashion. Palmated 

 and thickened tops occur with most frequency 

 on the Quantock range, where the herd is to 

 a certain extent inbred, in spite of the numbers 

 to which it has attained of late years ; double 

 brow and double bay antlers are met with 

 from time to time, and nondescript growths 

 springing from one horn or the other have 

 given certain deer the appearance of bearing 

 three horns. 



A certain switch-horned stag that frequented 

 Haddon for several years had one eye com- 

 pletely blinded by the downward growth of 

 his deformed horn, but he shed his encumbrance 

 eventually and died fighting with two normal 

 horns, though still of course minus an eye. Bits 

 of stick sometimes get wedged into a growing 

 horn and cause curious malformations, falls and 

 fights splinter the points of antlers and tops, and 

 one horned deer are by no means uncommon. 



A suitable mounting for shed horns is often 

 made from an oaken shield carved in the 

 semblance of bracken fronds or oak-apple boughs. 



