MAMMALIA—STAG. ool 
The most common color of the stag is yellow, though there are many 
found of a brown, and many of a red color. White stags are much more 
uncomnion, and seem to be stags become domestic. The color "of the horns, 
like that of the hair, seems in particular to depend on the nature and age 
of the animal. The horns of the young stags are whiter than those of the 
old ones. Of those stags, also, whose hair is of a light yellow, the horns 
are often of a sallow hue, and disagreeable to the eye. 
This animal seems to have good eyes, an exquisite smell, and an excek 
lent ear. When he would hearken to any thing, he raises his head, pricke 
up his ears, and then he hears from a great distance. When he issues from 
a little coppice, or some other spot half covered, he stops, in order to take a 
full view around him, and then snuffs up the wind, in order to try whether 
he can discover the scent of aught that may give him disturbance. Though 
naturally rather simple, he is yet far from being destitute of curiosity and 
cunning. If any one whistles, or calls aloud to him from a great distance, 
he instantly stops short, and gazes with fixed attention, with even a kind 
of admiration; and if he sees neither arms nor dogs, he passes along 
quietly, and without altering his pace. With equal tranquillity and pleasure 
he seems also to listen te the shepherd’s pipe, or flageolet ; and the huaters, 
in order to embolden him, sometimes use these instruments. In general, he 
fears men much less than he does dogs, and entertains neither distrust nor 
artifice, but in proportion as he is disturbed. He eats slowly, chooses his 
food, and seeks afterwards to repose himself, that he may ruminate at 
leisure, though the act of rumination he does not seem to perform with the 
same ease as the ox; nor is it without undergoing much violence that the 
stag can throw up de food contained in his first stomach. He seldom 
Irinks in the winter, and seldomer still in the spring. 
In England, the number of red deer is diminishing. This has, no doubt, 
arisen, frown the grazing of sheep and cattle, by which the seclusion the red 
deer are so fond of, has been broken in upon, both in the mountains and in 
the valleys. As the more lucrative occupation of the soil extends into the 
remoter districts, the race must further and further decrease; nor is the 
period at which they will be wholly extinct, in all probability, very distant. 
Now, unless by a person, whom long observation has rendered familiar 
with their haunts, the country may be traversed without seeing even one. 
From their fleetness, and the nature of the ground on which they are found, 
horses and hounds are of no direct use in the chase of them, as the steed 
would be required to leap precipices of fifty feet, instead of gates of five 
bars; and the dogs would be constantly tumbling into gullies and ravines, 
which are cleared by the deer at one bound. They cannot be driven “ with 
hound and horn,” as was the case in the days of ‘the barons bold;” neither 
ean they be collected and hemmed in, after the somewhat similar manner 
m which the Highland chiefs conducted their sports. Still, there are a few 
places where a person who has been habituated to the occupation, and who 
43 
