130 STAG- HUNTING ON EX MOOR. 



tiptoe, with nose in the air and snorting fiercely — Is a 

 favourite subject with painters. It Is curious that deer 

 entirely desert certain covers during the rutting 

 season and crowd into others. If a stag and a hind 

 be reported together in some remote wood by them- 

 selves, it may confidently be asserted that the stag is 

 a young one. 



After about a fortnight the stags are worn out by 

 the incessant watching and fighting, and soon after 

 the end of the season they herd together again, lean, 

 ragged-coated, and tucked up, from the effects of 

 the few previous weeks. Altogether the stag's life 

 is not a happy one ; no sooner is one trouble past 

 than another is on him. During the summer his 

 horns are growing, and keep him in constant irri- 

 tation and anxiety. The velvet is hardly shed when 

 the fever of the rutting season is on them. Then 

 there is the hard winter to live through ; and with the 

 return of spring returns also the shedding of the old 

 horns and growing of the new. In fact, it is only for 

 a few weeks in every year that the stag is his perfect 

 self; and those weeks, with a small margin before 

 and after, constitute what is called the stag-hunting 

 season. 



