68 FOREST CEEATURES. 



How truly and in every respect ^'^ plant-like " the 

 germing of the antler is, those parts not quite developed 



stag's antlers were in a perfect state, or even existent at all, at the 

 rutting season only ; that is, for but a few weeks in the whole year. 

 The truth is he has them for nine months out of the twelve, and all this 

 time they are m 'perfect fighting trim. Nor are deer at all " comba- 

 tive." At the particular season alluded to, all animals, without excep- 

 tion, are susceptible to jealousy when a rival shows himself, and 

 endeavour to drive him away. This temporary fit of jealousy, common 

 to all males under like circumstances, cannot be strictly called a " com- 

 bative instinct," or a " superaddition " to other qualities. 



I hope I have not misimderstood or mis-stated any thing : to avoid 

 doing the latter I subjoin the passages alluded to : — "In many species 

 Natiu-e has superadded to general health and strength particular 

 weapons and combative instincts which, as e. g. in the deer tribe, insure 

 to the strongest, to the longest winded, to the largest antlered, and the 

 sharpest snagged stags, the choice of the hinds and the chief share in 

 the propagation of the next generation." — Page 519. 



" The antlers of the deer are expressly given to the male, and per- 

 mitted to him, in fighting trim, only at the combative sexual season ; 

 they belong moreover to the most plastic and variable appendages of the 

 quadruped. Is it then a fact that the fallow deer propagated under 

 these influences in Windsor Forest since the reign of William Eufus, 

 now manifest in the superior condition of the antlers as weapons, that 

 amount and kind of change which the successions of generations, under 

 the influence of ' natural selection,' ought to have produced ? Do the 

 crowned antlers of the red deer of the nineteenth century surpass those 

 of the turbaries and submerged forest land which date long before the 

 beginning of our English history ? " 



This last question is easily answered. There is no comparison, as 

 regards size, to be made between the antlers of the present and former 

 centuries ; so greatly inferior are those which we have to those which 

 have been. And it is quite natural it should be so : not only did the deer 

 formerly reach a greater age, but they had better and more abundant 



