336 MAMMALIA -STAG. 
against the trees, in order to clear then: fium the scurf with which they 
are covered. 
The hinds, or females, carry their young eight mnths, and a few days. 
They are not all prolific; and one sort there is in particular, which iz 
always barren. The fawn retains this appellation no longer than till it is 
six months old; then the knobs begin to appear, and it takes the name of a 
knobber, which it bears till these knobs are lengthened to so many points, 
wnence they are termed prickets, or brockets. It does not quit its mother 
early, though it grows fast, but follows her all the summer. In winter, the 
hinds, the knobbers, the prickets, and the young stags resort to the herd, 
forming troops, which are more numerous in proportion as the season is 
more severe. In spring, they divide, the hinds retiring to bring forth their 
young; and at this time there are scarcely any but the prickets and the 
youvg stags, which go together. In general, the stags are inclined to 
remain with each other, and to roam abroad in companies ; it is only from 
fear or necessity that they are ever found dispersed or separated. 
The growth of the horns appears to depend on the redundancy of the 
fluids ; and the beauty of this, as indeed of every part, depends much upon 
cheir food. 
The stag passes his whole life in the alternatives of plenitude and want, 
of corpulence and leanness, of health and sickness, without having his con- 
stitution much affected by the violence of the change; nor is the duration 
of his life inferior to that of other animals which are not subject to such 
vicissitudes. As he is five or six years in growing, so he generally lives 
seven times that number of years; that is, thirty-five or forty years. What 
nas been reported, therefore, concerning the prodigious longevity of the 
stag, is without any good foundation, though supported by the story of one 
which was taken by Charles VI. in the forest of Senlis, with a collar round 
his neck, whereon was inscribed, ‘‘Cesar hoc me donavit;” and people 
chose rather to believe that this animal had lived a thousand years, and had 
received this collar from a Roman emperor, than to conclude that he might 
come from Germany, where the emperors have always ~.sumed the title 
of Cesar. 
The horns of the stag continue to increase in bulk and height, from the 
second year to the eighth. They remain beautiful, and much the same, 
during their vigor of life; but as their body declines with age, so do their 
horns decline also. 
It is but seldom that the stags of Europe have more than twenty or 
twenty-two antlers, even when their head is in its most beautiful state ; 
and, as the size of the stag’s head depends on the quantity of his food, so 
the quality of his horns is found also to depend on the kind of nourishment 
he receives. It is like the wood of the forest, large, soft, and light, in moist 
and fertile countries ; and, on the contrary, short, hard, and heavy, in such 
as are dry and barren. 
