THE ROE-DEER. 87 
the burrs of what should have been two independent horns, and 
aunion of the two beams in the centre of the forehead with a 
subsequent bifurcation and development of a single tine on each 
prong of the fork. By many sportsmen these abnormal horns 
-are much valued and eagerly collected. The pages of the 
German sporting papers—such as the ‘ Illustrirte Zeitung’ and 
‘Der Weidmann ’—contain, in almost every issue during the 
shooting season, engravings from photographs of remarkable 
Roe heads. 
Roes shed their horns from the beginning of December until 
January, and are then at their best. In February they begin to 
fall off in condition, and by the beginning of March they are 
useless as food until the following November. Bucks shot during 
the first week of December have had their horns so loose that 
they have fallen off on the way home. The time at which they 
lose the velvet from the new horns in the spring depends on the 
mildness or otherwise of the season, the bucks during a backward 
spring retaining it sometimes until the middle of April, while in 
early seasons the horns are quite clean by the beginning of that 
month. 
Occasionally a female Roe with horns has been met with, but 
such instances are undoubtedly rare. One with budding horns 
was shot on October 26th, 1875, by Mr. Duncan Davidson, of 
Inchmarlo, Banchory, Aberdeenshire. The skull of another, 
procured from Petworth Park, Sussex, is figured in the 
‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ (1879, p. 297), in illus- 
tration of some remarks on the subject by the late Edward 
Alston; and on January 5th, in that year, a third “in the 
velvet” was killed on the estate of Sir James Fergusson, Bart., 
of Kilkerran, Ayrshire, as reported in ‘The Field’ of the 18th 
of January, 1879. Two other instances noted in the Black 
_ Forest, at Kippenheim, are mentioned in ‘The Zoologist’ for 
1886, p. 435. 
_ The colour of the Roe varies with the season, being reddish 
brown in summer and grey in winter.* Until they exchange the 
red hair for the mouse-coloured, says Colquhoun (op. cit.), they 

* It is noteworthy that all three species of British Deer are distinguished 
by names indicative of their colour, namely, Red, Fallow (cognate with 
the German, falb, yellow), and Roan. 
