THE MANAGEMENT OF DEER FORESTS 103 



immaturity. We find in works on red deer many 

 tests given by which to distinguish an old from a 

 young stag, but I believe most of these are fallacious. 

 Smoothness or roughness of horn certainly has no- 

 thing to do with the age of the animal ; it depends 

 partly on the nature of the ground where the animal 

 has been living. If he frequents a wood he rubs his 

 horn smooth against trees ; but independently of this 

 it is the nature of some stags to have rougher horns 

 than others, and the discrepancy is also induced by 

 the differences between certain soils and pastures. 

 According to my own experience, two tests alone 

 are infallible, but unfortunately these can only be 

 applied after the animal is in your larder. The skin 

 of a young stag comes off much more easily than that 

 of an old one, and the distance between the skull and 

 the coronet of the horn is much greater. But in a 

 general way it may be said that short sharp points 

 indicate age, more especially if the presence of smooth 

 excrescences on one or both horns can be detected, 

 these latter being the remains of additional points 

 carried by the stag when in his prime. 



But, after all, if the rule laid down by the owner 

 of a forest is that inferior stags may be shot when 

 better beasts cannot be obtained, it is certain some 

 of these will be old deer ' going back.' I remember 



