io6 STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



shade in the male than in the female deer." (In the 

 case of the wapiti it is almost white.) "The throat of 

 the stag- is furnished with coarse hair, which at the 

 end of the autumn increases in growth, and forms a 

 thick ruff during the winter." 



The muzzle of the pure West Country deer is long 

 and taper ; and the hair between the horns and over 

 the brow is red and smooth. This is mentioned in 

 contraversion of the theory that the West Country 

 deer* were imported from Germany. The German 

 stags are much shorter and rounder in the snout, and 

 the hair on the brow is curly and shaggy. . The colour 

 of this hair is also different, being light brown mingled 

 with black, the whole producing much the same effect 

 in the matter of colour as a larch plantation in winter 

 time. The same distinction appears to hold good, 

 though perhaps less markedly, between the Scotch and 

 the Exmoor deer; it certainly applies in respect to the 

 shape of the head and the shagginess of the hair to 

 the Cheshire deer imported by Mr. Bisset, and a stag 

 turned out by Captain West, as well as to the imme- 

 diate progeny (probably not very numerous) of these. 

 A Devonshire man may be prejudiced, but the writer 



* But the red deer is plainly indigenous to England. See Harting, 

 " Extinct British Animals," pp. 64, 65. 



