122 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
December last, my son picked up two pairs of horns, which were lying 
together in one of the rides of a wood, and appeared to have been removed 
from the heads of their owners by violence, as the hair remained attached to 
their bases. It is probable that an encounter between two bucks occurred 
at this spot, and the weakened hold of the horns upon the skull yielding to 
the force of the charges, left the two combatants hornless. As the beams 
of the four horns were exceedingly bossed and deeply pitted, and the 
summits well antlered, they must have belonged to full-grown deer. We 
oceasionally find a single horn in the rides, which I have attributed to the 
work of a Fox, as it is usually placed on an ant-hill or slight eminence, with 
indications of the recent presence of Reynard. It is well known the Fox 
avd Stoat will drag their prey from the covert to an open spot and there 
devour it. A recently shed horn may possibly partake of the sweet 
scent of the deer, which, attracting the Fox, he carries it out, but on 
discovering his mistake leayes it to seek more palatable food. With 
regard to Mr. Dale’s statement that the Roe-deer are coursed by greyhounds, 
this does occur, I know, sometimes, but only exceptionally ; and indeed it 
cannot be otherwise, for they usually confine themselves to the large woods. 
When a deer has been observed to enter a small detached covert which is 
either unpreserved or under the control of a person who keeps a greyhound 
or a lurcher, the owner will have it drawn, after posting his dog at some 
avourable point to catch the deer as it endeavours to escape to the main 
covert, which, unless very close at hand, is fatal, for the greyhound is by far 
the fleeter of the two, and the roe is unable to double like a hare, and so 
elude the fatal gripe.—J. C. Manse.-PLurprit (Whatcombe, Dorsetshire). 
Youne Orrer 1x DecemMBER.—On the 28th December last, Mr. T.. E. 
Gunn, of this city, showed me a young Otter which was taken alive out of 
a hollow tree at Cossey, on the morning of that day. It weighed, when alive, 
nine ounces and a half, and measured eleven inches and a half from its 
nose to the tip of its tail. Its closed eyes and toothless gums showed that 
it was not many days, probably not many hours, old.—T. Sournwetn 
(Norwich). 
SToaTs AND THE LATE SevERE WEATHER.—The severe winter seems 
to have bad great effect on the colour of the common Stoat, Mustela 
erminea. Three specimens perfectly white, with the exception of a little 
brown on the upper part of the head, were brought to our birdstuffers in one 
week. Such specimens are occasionally met with in this neighbourhood 
during comparatively mild winters, but so seldom that, strange to say, 
neither of the persons who received those referred to remembered to have 
had one before.—J. Garcomps (Durnford Street, Stonehouse). 
THe Squirren in Scorranp.—Mr. J. A. Harvie Brown, of Dunipace 
House, Larbert, N.B., writing to the ‘Journal of Forestry,’ states that he is 
