54 rOKEST CEEATUEES. 



In tMs year 367 were killed^ altogether; and some were 

 stags weighing 4 J cwt., and with 3 J inches of fat on 

 their broad backs. 



The Margrave John Greorge of Brandenburg, in a 

 letter to the LandgTave of Hesse, tells him that in 1581 

 he had killed 677 stags, 968 hinds, and 501 wild boars. 

 In another year Ludwig William shot, in stalking^ 345 

 stags, and his brother 4)7. In the summer of 1588 the 

 forests near Smalkalden gave, as the produce of three 

 days' sport, 50 good stags : some of them weighed 5 cwt., 

 and had fat five fingers broad on their backs. In another 

 year, 1603, before the 23rd of September, Landgrave 

 Louis IV. had already killed 93 stags. 



In Bavaria, too, red-deer were plentiful. In the diary 

 kept by Duke Albert V. is carefully noted down the result 

 of each day's sport. In one year we find 139 stags as 

 the number he had shot "with his own hand:" in 

 another year 246, and so on. In twenty-five years he had 

 brought down 2,7 7 9 stags. And in the game book of Duke 

 William IV. of Bavaria, 817 are marked as having been 

 killed in 1545. And the stags of those days were unlike 

 the degenerate race that we know. In 1632, in the 

 Darmstadt territory, 472 head of deer were killed : the 

 largest stag weighing 6 cwt.*, and being a stag of 24 ; 



* I hare no means of learning the exact relation in which this weight 

 stood to oiu' own ; but unless a considerable change has taken place 

 since the time in question, the difference is imimportant. It was cus- 

 tomary to weigh the stags as they fell. 



