82 



THE TWO-TOED ARTIODACTYLA. 



mass of spray envelopes the whole scene. Suddenly 

 he falls — he dies — it is all over. The hounds are 

 called off, and are carefully examined for wounds." 

 Elsewhere the same writer records another 

 striking incident in elk-hunting. " One great plea- 

 sure," he says, "in the hunting at Newera Ellia 

 is the ease with which it is obtained. In fact, the 

 sport lies at the very door. This may be said to 

 be literally true, and not a fa^on de purler, as I 

 once killed an elk that jumped through a window. 

 It was a singular incident. The hounds found 

 three elk at the same time on the mountain at the 

 back of the hotel at Newera Ellia. The pack 

 divided; several hounds were lost for two days, 

 having taken their elk to an impossible country, 

 and the rest of the pack concentrated upon a doe, 

 with the exception of old Smut, who had another 

 elk all to himself. This elk, which was a large 

 doe, he brought down from the top of the mountain 

 to the back of the hotel, just as we had killed the 

 other which the pack had brought to the same 

 place. A great number of persons were standing 

 in the hotel yard to view the sport, when old Smut 

 and his game appeared, rushing in full fly through 

 the crowd. The elk was so bothered and headed 

 that she went through the back-door of the hotel 

 at full gallop, and Smut, with his characteristic 

 sagacity, immediately bolted round to the front of 

 the house, naturally concluding that if she went in 

 at the back-door she must come out at the front. 

 He was perfectly right ; the old dog stood on the 

 lawn before the hotel watching the house with 

 great eagerness. In the meantime the elk was 

 galloping from room to room in the hotel, chased 

 by a crowd of people, until she at length took 

 refuge in a lady's bed-room, from which there was 

 no exit as the window was closed. The crash of 

 glass may be imagined as an animal as large as a 

 pony leaped through it; but old Smut was ready 

 for her, and after a chase of a few yards he pulled 

 her down."] 



In the True Deer (Cervus) the round 

 antlers become very large, and have an 

 additional tine added to them every year; at 

 first a simple shoot each branch may come 

 to bear ten or even more tines or prongs. 

 Since our Common Stag or Red-deer {Cervus 

 elap/ius), PI. XXV., is so highly esteemed 

 as an object of the chase the increase in the 

 number of the tines is a subject which has 



been closely studied, and books on hunting 

 are filled with minute details regarding 

 animals with ten and twenty tines or even 

 more. We cannot here enter upon these 

 particulars any more than we can take 

 account of the refined investigations which 

 have enabled hunters to judge of the age, 

 sex, size, and weight of an animal from the 

 impressions of its hoofs — their size and de- 

 gree of divergence. 



The red -deer, which is shown in Plate 

 XXV., is a beautiful well-formed animal with 

 a majestic bearing, of a reddish-gray colour, 

 about 5 feet high at the withers, with large 

 ears, large lachrymal glands, and antlers 

 curved upwards and outwards. The tail is 

 pretty short, the fur slightly spotted in the 

 young animal. The stag prefers the depths 

 of the forests, defends itself bravely against 

 depredators, and at the season of heat is very 

 combative; this occurs in September and 

 October, and then the male may be heard 

 challenging his rivals to fight with hoarse 

 trumpet-like tones, which resound to a great 

 distance. The older the stag is the deeper 

 is the sound that it emits. Formerly it was 

 the practice in hunting the stag to imitate 

 this sound by means of small horns specially 

 made for the purpose, and in order all the 

 more surely to attract the animal the horns 

 were made to resemble the sound of a com- 

 paratively weak stag. 



Several allied species, such as the Wapiti 

 or Canadian stag, the Persian Deer, and 

 others, have been distinguished. All these 

 presumed species appear to us to be only 

 geographical varieties, the distinctions between 

 which are of little moment. Thus the wapiti, 

 for example, is certainly much more powerful 

 and much taller than our European stag. Its 

 antlers are much stronger, and animals with 

 twenty tines are no rarity in Canada. But 

 in the middle ages our stag reached a much 

 greater size than it does now, and the nu- 

 merous antlers which have been collected in 

 the neighbourhood of lake-dwellings are so 



