STAG, HIND, AND CALF. iii 



" knobbler," "spire," and "pricket" show pretty 

 clearly that they are derived from the appearance of 

 the horns at different ages. It will therefore now be 

 necessary to plunge into the difficult and much-vexed 

 question of the connection between a deer's age and 

 the state of his horns, or (as these are generally called 

 in the west) his "head." 



First it must be premised that the horns of the red 

 deer differ entirely from those of the fallow. The 

 horn of a stag consists of a single beam with points 

 projecting from it. The horns of a buck are, as is 

 well known, flat and palmated, the main beam or 

 rounded portion being rarely over six or eight inches 

 long. The writer has, however, seen a head of a very 

 old fallow buck which was formed like a red deer's, 

 and hardly to be distinguished from one. The points 

 projecting from the main horn or "beam" of the red 

 deer bear, in the west, the following names. That 

 nearest the burr (which 'is described in old books as 

 the round ball of the horn next the head of the hart) 

 is called the brow antler ; that generally, but not in- 

 variably, next above it, and from one and a half to 

 three inches apart, is called the bez or bay ; that next 

 above the bay, and usually at a greater interval than 

 that between brow and bay, is called the trey or tray. 



