ORDER RUMINANTIA. 95 



From the earliest periods stag-hunting was the favourite 

 amusement of heroes, princes, and grandees. As an art it 

 was once considered important, and termed venerie, because 

 the Stag is an inhabitant of the forest, the chase being ap- 

 plied to hunting fallow-deer, roebuck, and other animals, 

 who resort more constantly to the plain. The study of a 

 whole life was required to learn all its technicalities, and 

 the experience and attention of many a laborious day to 

 distinguish the slot or track of the beast from that of the 

 hind or fallow-deer, and even of the old stag or hart from 

 the hart of ten ; and then again, if the game had or had 

 not its horns complete. All these observations were and 

 are requisite ; for to great vigour and velocity, the Stag 

 joins no less caution and vigilance : before he quits the 

 wood he has already carefully viewed and scented the open 

 country ; when he returns his measures are the same, tak- 

 ing care to enter from leeward, so as to detect, by the 

 scent, every suspicious circumstance : before he will arbour, 

 or take his rest, he will pass the spot, return direct upon 

 his tract, and then, at a right angle, spring off to his 

 retreat. 



Men without arms, horses, or carriages, excite his curi- 

 osity more than his fears, but dogs are an object of terror 

 to him ; from them he flies at all times, and in the chase 

 will not stop to resist them, or stand at bay, until he is ex- 

 hausted or driven into the water. With all his senses very 

 acute, his courage, when driven to resistance, is very de- 

 termined. The late Duke of Cumberland exposed one, in 

 an enclosure, to the attack of a Bengal tiger, who in vain 

 endeavoured to bring him down : the Stag was withdrawn 

 after a long and successful defence. 



Baron Cuvier cites a great number of places where fossil 

 remains of the Stag have been found, and among others in 

 England, along with teeth, &c, of the Elephant, the Rhi- 

 noceros, and the Hippopotamus, as in the same caverns of 



