ORDER RUMINANTIA. 91 



The hair of this animal is remarkably brittle, arid holds 

 to the skin only by a small pellicle ; his eyes have an elon- 

 gated pupil, and his muzzle is very broad ; the tongue is 

 soft, and ears middle-sized and pointed. The Stag is dis- 

 tinguished from the Hind by his horns, the long bristly 

 hair of his throat, and the canines in the upper jaw. The 

 calves during the first six months are brown, spotted with 

 white ; after this period the bossets Or protuberances of the 

 horns become visible in the young males, which gradually 

 develop two simple cylindrical knobs. During the second 

 year the horns assume the figure of dags, or spikes, and 

 the animal is then named a Brocket. The third his new 

 horns throw out two or three tynes or snags, when he is 

 termed a Spayad ; and the fourth year the summit first 

 assumes the crown, or what was anciently denominated a 

 surroyal, then in the language of sportsmen he is a Stag- 

 gard, or Stag of the fourth year ; the fifth he becomes a 

 Stag, and the sixth an Hart. From the fourth year the 

 horns receive little alteration in their form below, except- 

 ing in bulk ; but about the crown the tynes or forks aug- 

 ment in a variety of shapes; this description, however, 

 refers to horns which have their regular development, 

 without accident, for in that case they are subject to mon- 

 strosity, as in all other deer. While Germany was more 

 wooded, and the Stag had greater abundance of food and 

 of repose, the ramifications of the crown multiplied in some 

 individuals to an extraordinary amount. We have sketched 

 one in the Museum of Hesse Cassel, of twenty-eight ant- 

 lers. According to Baron Cuvier there Was one of sixty- 

 six, or thirty-three antlers on each horn. This stag was 

 killed by the first king of Prussia, in 1696, and the horns 

 were preserved, according to Bechstein, at Moritzburg, but 

 Wilddun gen states them to have beenatKonigswusterhausen, 

 in an article describing another head (perhaps of a fossil) 



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