436 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



years old — the age which, without knowledge of the ear-mai*ks, my huntsman 

 assigned to him. All these deer had lost the velvet. My huntsman has a 

 theory that early calves lose it sooner than later ones ; but there is only a 

 week or ten days difference in the time of shedding the velvet, and at least 

 three months, if not more, in the time of calving. This T know by observa- 

 tion. Moreover, we have been obHged of late years, by the increasing number 

 of deer, to hunt hinds as late as March, and the development of the foetus 

 differs very much. I do not know if you have noticed it, or can give any 

 reason for it, but in English and Scotch Red-deer it is the exception for 

 the bay (or second) antler to bo longer than the brow, while that is the rule 

 in the Kashmiri, Bara Singh, and the American Wapiti. But deers' heads 

 grow all sorts of ways. We killed a stag last year, which, from his teeth, was 

 very old, with a head like this [the sketch shows a head without bay antlers, 

 and clubbed at top, the knob on the off-horn being eleven inches in cir- 

 cumference ; that on the near-horn nine inches. — Ed.], and another not 

 long before with a palmated top. A curious thing about the former was 

 that his "slot" was no bigger than that of a four-year old, and his testicles 

 also were small, though the condition of his teeth left uo doubt as to his 

 age being great. Three years ago, too, we killed a stag with knobs on his 

 horns, and he was only a six- or seven-year-old stag. But the strangest 

 head I ever saw was one killed in the Duke of Bedford's park at Woburn, 

 being more like a Fallow-deer's head, only very irregular, and with the 

 liorns squeezed up against each other. I may add that the modern heads 

 here, notwithstanding the crossing against which Dr. Clarke inveighs, 

 compare favourably with the ancient ones. The bay antler is as often 

 as not missing all through. Since writing the above I have seen a pair of 

 horns whicli were shed this spring by a stag we killed the other day. They 

 had two ou top one side and three on the other. When we killed him he 

 had three on top both sides and the horns are somewhat larger. He was 

 apparently an eight-year old deer ; and I know another similar instance. 

 A very fine stag was killed some years ago near Holincote, with I think 

 five and four on top ; the horns he shed the spring previous had one point 

 less, and were somewhat smaller all over ; both pairs are in the possession 

 of Sir T. D. Acland. This was one of the heaviest deer ever killed, and 

 was supposed to be nine or ten years old. Our late Master, Mr. Fen wick 

 Bisset, who died the other day, left me his hunting records and papers, and 

 I expect that from them I could give you further particulars as to the 

 horns of deer whose ages were known by oar-marks, as also of a castrated 

 deer having huras like another. We have a theory down here that if a 

 stag fails to grow his bay antler when he ought — i.e., at three years old 

 or thereabouts — he will never do so ; but T rather doubt if this always holds 

 good, though no doubt it often does. We hunted a stag on Sept. 15th which 

 still had velvet on his horns. Lord Portsmouth has the head of a stag 



