38 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE RED DEER 



happened that a fine young stag belonging to a 

 neighbour of mine paid an unexpected visit to a 

 Land League meeting. When the proceedings of the 

 league terminated for the evening, and the people 

 wished to leave the building in which the League 

 had met, they were dismayed to find the exit 

 barred by a gentleman wearing a pair of horns. 

 The stag had wandered into a district in which 

 he was unknown, and as the outline of his head 

 was only indistinctly seen in the gloom of a winter's 

 night, the conspirators, minded of the unholy work 

 in which they had so recently been engaged, not 

 unnaturally concluded that the Evil One himself 

 had arrived to claim his own. Many readers will 

 recall the professional experience of Dr. Collyns, who 

 was called upon to attend upon a frightened fisher- 

 man. This worthy, it will be remembered, happened 

 to cast his net in the river Barle, not knowing that a 

 hunted stag had ensconced himself in a deep hole 

 under cover of the roots of an overhanging elder-tree. 

 The deer became entangled in the net, and dragged 

 the fisherman across the stream in its endeavour to 

 escape. The man was so frightened that he returned 

 home, and sent for the doctor. To his physician he 

 solemnly confided how he had been dragged right 

 across the river a horrible experience indeed and 



